# Michael Driscoll

> Michael Driscoll is the co-founder and CEO of Rill Data, a company building fast, operational business intelligence dashboards on top of an embedded analytics engine. He previously co-founded Metamarkets, the ad-analytics firm whose internal database became the open-source project Apache Druid before Snap acquired the company in 2017. A bioinformatician turned serial entrepreneur, Driscoll began his career as a software engineer on the Human Genome Project, holds a PhD in Bioinformatics from Boston University and an AB from Harvard, and has spent three decades arguing that metrics, not tables or dashboards, are the real interface between data teams and the businesses they serve.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Rill Data
- **Organizations:** Rill Data, Metamarkets, Dataspora, CustomInk, Data Collective
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** A.B., Harvard University, Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Boston University
- **Known for:** Co-created the database at Metamarkets that became the open-source Apache Druid, adopted by Netflix, Lyft, Salesforce and Pinterest, Built and sold Metamarkets to Snap Inc. (2017), Founded Dataspora (acquired by Via Science) and online retailer CustomInk

## Career timeline

- **1990s** — Began career as a software engineer on the Human Genome Project
- **2000** — Co-founded the online retailer CustomInk
- **2008** — Founded the data science consultancy Dataspora (later acquired by Via Science)
- **2010** — Co-founded Metamarkets as CTO; the company built the database that became Apache Druid
- **2011** — Druid replaced Metamarkets' HBase cluster in production on April 4, 2011
- **2012** — Metamarkets open-sourced Druid (announced October 24, 2012)
- **2017** — Snap Inc. acquired Metamarkets
- **2020** — Co-founded Rill Data; Rill acquired the Metamarkets IP from Snap
- **2022** — Launched Rill Developer and raised a $12M seed round

## Achievements

- Co-created the database at Metamarkets that became the open-source Apache Druid, adopted by Netflix, Lyft, Salesforce and Pinterest
- Built and sold Metamarkets to Snap Inc. (2017)
- Founded Dataspora (acquired by Via Science) and online retailer CustomInk
- Founding partner of venture capital firm Data Collective (DCVC)
- Raised $12M seed for Rill Data from True Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Sierra Ventures, Park West Asset Management, DCVC and dozens of angels
- Reacquired the Metamarkets IP from Snap to build Rill

## Latest updates

- **2022-08** — Rill Data launched Rill Developer and announced a $12M seed round to reimagine business dashboards

## Links

- Website: https://medriscoll.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/medriscoll/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/medriscoll

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/michael-driscoll
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-22