Fivetran to acquire Census to extend platform with reverse ETL and data activation

Big data integration firm Fivetran Inc. today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire universal data platform company Census for an undisclosed price.

Founded in 2018 as Sutro Labs Inc., Census offers a data activation platform that allows organizations to operationalize their data by syncing it from cloud data warehouses to various business applications. The company helped pioneer the Reverse ETL — which stands for extract, transform and load — methodology that allows businesses to move data from centralized storage back into tools such as Salesforce Inc., HubSpot Inc. and Zendesk Inc. The goal is to deliver real-time, data-driven decision-making across teams.

Census’s platform is designed to bridge the gap between data teams and business units with features such as Audience Hub, which allows for the creation of dynamic audience segments without the need for coding. Those are complemented by artificial intelligence-powered enhancements that enrich data for more personalized customer interactions.

The company Universal Data Platform integrates data transformation, activation and governance into a single workspace to foster collaboration between technical and nontechnical teams. The result is to ensure that data is not only accessible but also actionable and compliant with governance standards.

With the acquisition, Fivetran claims, it will become the only fully managed platform that enables enterprises to move governed, automated and real-time data across their entire stack, from source systems to data platforms and now back into the business applications that drive decision-making.

“For years, our most strategic customers told us they also want to action their data in real-time with Fivetran, not just centralize it in a warehouse,” said Fivetran Chief Executive George Fraser. “With Census, we’re delivering on that need.”

Post-acquisition, joint customers will be able to move trusted, modeled data into every part of their stack, from source systems to cloud platforms and back into operational tools, all on a single, fully managed platform.

As part of the deal, the Census team is joining Fivetran, with Census co-founder and CEO Boris Jabes set to lead Fivetran’s data activation strategy moving forward. “Fivetran has long set the standard for simplicity and reliability in data movement and by joining forces, we’re creating the most complete and trusted platform for operational analytics and AI activation,” said Jabes.

Coming into its acquisition, Census had raised $80.3 million over three rounds, according to data from Tracxn. Investors in the company include Tiger Global Management, Insight Partners LP, Sequoia Capital Operations, a16z and SV Angel.

Anjan Kundavaram, chief product officer of Fivetran, talked with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestream studio, in October, when he discussed how Fivetran’s hybrid deployment model aims to simplify data sync across on-premises and cloud environments:

Image: Census