# Fangjin Yang

> Fangjin Yang is the co-founder and CEO of Imply, the commercial company behind Apache Druid - the real-time analytics database he helped create at Metamarkets in 2011. He turned a side project born from the millisecond demands of programmatic advertising into a $1.1B unicorn, raising $215M along the way. An original Druid committer and University of Waterloo-trained engineer, Yang now leads Imply's mission to power interactive, high-concurrency analytics applications at scale - with customers including Netflix, Atlassian, Salesforce, and Confluent.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Imply
- **Organizations:** Imply, Apache Software Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z Scout), Metamarkets, Cisco
- **Nationality:** Canadian-American
- **Education:** BASc in Electrical Engineering, University of Waterloo, MASc in Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- **Known for:** Co-created Apache Druid, now part of the Apache Software Foundation, Founded Imply, which reached unicorn status ($1.1B valuation) in 2022, Raised $215.3M in total funding, including a $100M Series D round

## Career timeline

- **~2009** — Joined Cisco as a Software Engineer
- **~2011** — Joined Metamarkets as a Lead Engineer; co-created Apache Druid to solve real-time analytics for programmatic advertising
- **2011** — Druid open-sourced to the developer community
- **2015** — Co-founded Imply with Gian Merlino and Vadim Ogievetsky to commercialize Druid; initial backing from Khosla Ventures
- **2021** — Became angel investor and a16z scout for Andreessen Horowitz
- **2022** — Raised $100M Series D; Imply reached unicorn status at $1.1B valuation; total funding $215.3M
- **2023** — Named Datanami 2023 Person to Watch
- **2024** — Imply hit $63M ARR, up 77% year-over-year, with 100 enterprise customers

## Achievements

- Co-created Apache Druid, now part of the Apache Software Foundation
- Founded Imply, which reached unicorn status ($1.1B valuation) in 2022
- Raised $215.3M in total funding, including a $100M Series D round
- Built an enterprise analytics platform used by Netflix, Atlassian, Salesforce, and Confluent
- Named Datanami Person to Watch in 2023
- Active angel investor and a16z scout at Andreessen Horowitz
- Grew Imply to $63M ARR in 2024 with 77% year-over-year growth
- Published technical articles on O'Reilly platform covering analytics stack architecture and Druid design

## Latest updates

- **2024-01** — Imply reported $63M ARR, representing 77% year-over-year growth with 100 enterprise customers
- **2023-08** — Named Datanami 2023 Person to Watch for contributions to real-time analytics
- **2022-05** — Imply raised $100M Series D, achieving unicorn status at $1.1B valuation

## Links

- Website: https://imply.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fangjin/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/fangjin
- GitHub: https://github.com/fjy
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fangjin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fangjin.yang/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/fangjin-yang
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-26