apache-flink
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StreamNative Wants the Stream to Outlive the Broker
The Apache Pulsar founders built a company to manage the messages that keep modern businesses moving. Now they are making a more provocative bet: the data should be able to leave the broker behind.
Hojjat Jafarpour Has Spent 20 Years Asking Data to Hurry Up
Long before real-time data became an AI talking point, the DeltaStream founder was studying how information moves. His career is a patient argument that the future arrives continuously - and should be queryable in plain SQL.
DeltaStream
DeltaStream is a Menlo Park-based company building a unified, serverless stream processing platform on top of Apache Flink. Founded in 2021 by Hojjat Jafarpour, the creator of ksqlDB, it lets teams build real-time streaming applications and pipelines using SQL - without wrestling with Flink's operational complexity. Its Fusion platform combines streaming, real-time, and batch analytics into a single serverless experience, integrating with Kafka, Kinesis, Snowflake, Databricks, and Apache Iceberg. The company has raised $25M total, backed by NEA, Galaxy Interactive, and Sanabil.
Confluent
Confluent is the data streaming company founded by the original creators of Apache Kafka. Its Data Streaming Platform - anchored by fully managed Confluent Cloud and a self-managed Confluent Platform, plus managed Apache Flink for stream processing - lets organizations connect, process, and govern data in motion across clouds in real time. Used by thousands of enterprises including a large share of the Fortune 500, Confluent went public in 2021 (NASDAQ: CFLT) and in December 2025 agreed to be acquired by IBM in a deal valuing it at roughly $11 billion.