# Alation

> Alation is a Redwood City-based enterprise software company that built one of the first modern data catalogs by pairing machine learning with human curation. Its Data Intelligence Platform helps large organizations find, trust, and govern their data, and it has since pivoted toward an agentic AI platform that uses autonomous agents to automate data discovery, governance, and quality. The company serves roughly 450 enterprise customers, including more than a quarter of the Fortune 100, and has raised about $340 million at a valuation north of $1.7 billion.

- **Founded:** 2012
- **Headquarters:** Redwood City, California, United States
- **Founders:** Satyen Sangani (Co-founder & CEO), Aaron Kalb (Co-founder), Venky Ganti (Co-founder), Feng Niu (Co-founder)
- **Team size:** Approximately 550 employees
- **Products:** Alation Data Catalog, Alation Data Governance, Alation Data Quality, Alation Data Lineage, Alation Anywhere
- **Notable:** Credited with helping define the modern data catalog category in 2012, Reached unicorn status with a $1.2B valuation in 2021, then $1.7B+ in 2022, Surpassed $100M in annual recurring revenue in September 2022

## Products & services

- **Alation Data Catalog** — AI-powered data catalog that unifies discovery with natural-language search, surfacing definitions, lineage, policies, usage, and trust signals, kept current by active metadata and 120+ connectors.
- **Alation Data Governance** — Centralizes policies and automates stewardship, access controls, masking, and approvals across the data estate.
- **Alation Data Quality** — Surfaces quality metrics, lineage, and usage directly in the catalog through an Open Data Quality Framework that plugs into best-of-breed tools.
- **Alation Data Lineage** — Traces data from source to consumption so teams can audit how information flows and changes.
- **Alation Anywhere** — Brings trusted data into everyday apps like Excel, Teams, and Slack so users can search and act on assets in context.
- **Agentic Platform & AI Agent SDK** — A suite of AI agents that automate discovery, governance, and compliance, plus an SDK for customers to build their own data agents.
- **Chat with Your Data** — Agentic feature that lets users query structured data in natural language instead of code.

## Achievements

- Credited with helping define the modern data catalog category in 2012
- Reached unicorn status with a $1.2B valuation in 2021, then $1.7B+ in 2022
- Surpassed $100M in annual recurring revenue in September 2022
- Named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for data catalog / metadata management categories
- Acquired Numbers Station AI in 2025 to accelerate agentic data workflows

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Announced its Agentic Platform, reinventing the data catalog for the AI era with AI agents and an Agent SDK.
- **2025-05** — Acquired Numbers Station AI, a builder of AI agents for data workflows.
- **2025-10** — Introduced Agent Builder, letting customers build and deploy agents on structured data.
- **2025-11** — Launched Alation CDE Manager, an agentic suite for governing critical data elements.

## Links

- Website: https://www.alation.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/alation
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Alation
- GitHub: https://github.com/Alation
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Alation
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alationinc

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/alation
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-02