# Chris Merrick

> Chris Merrick is the Co-Founder and CTO of Omni, a $1.5B-valued AI analytics platform that raised $120M in Series C funding in April 2026. A Princeton physics graduate and longtime Philadelphia resident, Merrick shaped the modern data stack long before Omni existed - he wrote the first lines of code for dbt, co-created the Singer open-source ETL standard at RJMetrics, and led engineering through Stitch's acquisition by Talend. At Omni, he reunited with college friends Colin Zima and Jamie Davidson to build a BI platform that combines governed semantic modeling with the flexibility of ad-hoc SQL analysis, serving customers like BambooHR, Perplexity, and BuzzFeed.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CTO at Omni
- **Organizations:** Omni, Stitch, Talend, RJMetrics, Yodle
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Physics, Princeton University
- **Known for:** Co-wrote the first lines of code for dbt (data build tool), now a foundational standard in modern data engineering, Co-created Singer, a widely-adopted open-source ETL standard, Led Stitch as CTO through acquisition by Talend in 2018

## Career timeline

- **~2009** — Graduated Princeton University with a Physics degree
- **2010** — Joined RJMetrics as VP of Engineering early in the company's life
- **2016** — Wrote the first lines of code for dbt (data build tool) while at RJMetrics; co-created the Singer open-source ETL standard
- **2016-2018** — Became CTO of Stitch, a spinout from RJMetrics
- **2018** — Stitch acquired by Talend; Merrick stayed on as VP of Engineering
- **2018-2022** — VP of Engineering at Talend, continuing to lead data infrastructure engineering
- **2022** — Left Talend to co-found Omni with Colin Zima and Jamie Davidson; raised $27M Series A
- **2024** — Omni raised additional $20M from Theory Ventures; Merrick published influential 'Just-in-Time Data Modeling' blog post
- **2025** — Omni reached $650M valuation with 8x year-over-year customer usage growth
- **2026** — Omni raised $120M Series C at $1.5B valuation led by ICONIQ, with 4x revenue growth

## Achievements

- Co-wrote the first lines of code for dbt (data build tool), now a foundational standard in modern data engineering
- Co-created Singer, a widely-adopted open-source ETL standard
- Led Stitch as CTO through acquisition by Talend in 2018
- Co-founded Omni, which reached $1.5B valuation in 2026 after raising $120M Series C
- Helped grow Omni to 4x year-over-year revenue growth and over 200 customers
- Published the influential 'Case for Just-In-Time Data Modeling' concept adopted by modern data teams

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Omni raised $120M Series C at a $1.5B valuation led by ICONIQ, with participation from Theory Ventures, First Round Capital, Redpoint, and GV
- **2024-05** — Published 'The Case for Just-In-Time Data Modeling' on the Omni blog, articulating a new philosophy for modern data teams
- **2024-03** — Omni announced additional $20M in capital from Theory Ventures, growing total funding toward $188M

## Links

- Website: https://omni.co
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merrickchristopher
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/chriswmerrick

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/chris-merrick
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-27