# Sherman Ye

> Sherman Ye is the Founder and CEO of NebulaGraph (vesoft Inc.), the company behind one of the world's most scalable open-source distributed graph databases. After engineering stints at Facebook and Ant Financial — where he worked directly on graph database infrastructure — Ye founded vesoft in 2018 to bring enterprise-grade graph database technology to a market hungry for connected-data insights. NebulaGraph can handle trillions of edges with millisecond latency, and counts Tencent, Meituan, and JD Digits among its users. Ye led the company through a $8M pre-A round in 2020 and a Series A in 2022 led by Jeneration Capital, while pioneering the GraphRAG concept that merges knowledge graphs with large language models.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at NebulaGraph (vesoft Inc.)
- **Organizations:** vesoft Inc. / NebulaGraph, Taiji Networks (co-founder), Ant Financial (former), Facebook / Meta (former), Open Text (former), LogLogic Inc. (former), Atex Media Solutions (former), Corechange Inc. (former), LDBC (Linked Data Benchmark Council, member)
- **Nationality:** Chinese-American
- **Education:** Not specified, Fudan University, Not specified, University of Maine
- **Known for:** Founded vesoft Inc. and built NebulaGraph into one of the leading open-source distributed graph databases in the world, Open-sourced NebulaGraph in 2019 — one of the first to offer a production-grade open-source distributed graph database, Grew NebulaGraph community from 60 to 900+ enterprise users in two years

## Career timeline

- **~1999** — Senior Developer at Atex Media Solutions
- **~2006** — Team/Tech Leader at LogLogic Inc.
- **~2009** — Co-founded Taiji Networks
- **~2010** — Senior Software Engineer at Corechange Inc. / Open Text
- **2011** — Joined Facebook as Software Engineer, working on graph database infrastructure
- **2015** — Joined Ant Financial as Senior Staff Engineer, leading graph database work
- **2018** — Founded vesoft Inc. (NebulaGraph) to commercialize open-source graph database technology
- **2019** — Open-sourced NebulaGraph on GitHub; Alpha release in May 2019, 1,614 GitHub stars by December
- **2020** — Raised $8M pre-Series A led by Redpoint China Ventures and Matrix Partners China; reached 20+ enterprise clients including Meituan and JD.com
- **2022** — Raised Series A 'in the low tens of millions' led by Jeneration Capital; user base grew from 60 to 900+; major clients include Tencent, Meituan, JD Digits, Kuaishou
- **2023** — Pioneered GraphRAG concept jointly with LlamaIndex — merging knowledge graphs with large language models
- **2024** — Announced NebulaGraph RAG platform at VLDB 2024; NebulaGraph Enterprise v5.0 RC released with full ISO-GQL support
- **2026** — Leading NebulaGraph with 200+ enterprise customers, 120+ employees, expanding global presence

## Achievements

- Founded vesoft Inc. and built NebulaGraph into one of the leading open-source distributed graph databases in the world
- Open-sourced NebulaGraph in 2019 — one of the first to offer a production-grade open-source distributed graph database
- Grew NebulaGraph community from 60 to 900+ enterprise users in two years
- Secured $8M pre-Series A (2020) and a Series A 'in the low tens of millions' (2022) from top-tier VCs including Jeneration Capital, Redpoint China Ventures, Matrix Partners China, and Source Code Capital
- Attracted marquee clients: Tencent, Meituan, JD Digits, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu
- Pioneered the GraphRAG (Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation) concept integrating knowledge graphs with LLMs
- Led NebulaGraph to LDBC (Linked Data Benchmark Council) membership, advancing international graph database standards
- Delivered NebulaGraph Enterprise v5.0 with full ISO-GQL support
- Built a database capable of handling trillions of edges with millisecond latency at high concurrency
- Led technical teams at both Facebook and Ant Financial on graph database infrastructure before founding his own company

## Latest updates

- **2024-07** — NebulaGraph Enterprise v5.0 RC released with Full-Fledged GQL (ISO-standard graph query language) support
- **2024-08** — NebulaGraph RAG platform announced at VLDB 2024, enabling GraphRAG applications with minimal code
- **2023-08** — Pioneered GraphRAG concept jointly with LlamaIndex, combining knowledge graphs with LLM retrieval
- **2022-09** — Closed Series A funding round led by Jeneration Capital; company reached 900+ community users
- **2022-09** — NebulaGraph joins LDBC (Linked Data Benchmark Council) to advance international graph database standards

## Links

- Website: https://nebula-graph.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shermanye/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NebulaGraph
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/NebulaGraph/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/sherman-ye
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-22