# Tristan Handy

> Tristan Handy is the co-founder of dbt Labs (formerly Fishtown Analytics), the company behind dbt (data build tool) - the open-source transformation layer that helped define the modern data stack and spawned the analytics engineering profession. Starting with $10,000 of his own money in 2016, he bootstrapped for four years before raising $410M and reaching a $4.2B valuation. Following a 2025 merger with Fivetran, he now serves as Co-Founder and President of the combined entity on a path to IPO. He also writes the Analytics Engineering Roundup newsletter, which has 30,000+ subscribers.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and President at dbt Labs + Fivetran
- **Organizations:** dbt Labs, Fivetran, RevBoss
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Finance and Information Technology, University of Maryland, MBA in Entrepreneurship, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
- **Known for:** Co-created dbt, one of the world's most widely used open-source data transformation tools, adopted by 80,000+ teams, Pioneered and popularized the 'analytics engineer' job title and discipline, Built a $4.2B company starting from a $10,000 personal investment

## Career timeline

- **2003** — Joined Deloitte Consulting as Senior Consultant
- **2008** — Enrolled in MBA program at UNC Kenan-Flagler
- **2009** — Interned at GE Energy (Renewable Energy Leadership Program)
- **2009** — Joined Squarespace as Director of Operations
- **2010** — Became COO at Argyle Social
- **2013** — Joined RJMetrics as VP of Marketing
- **2015** — Launched the Analytics Engineering Roundup newsletter
- **2016** — Co-founded Fishtown Analytics (later dbt Labs) with $10,000 personal investment
- **2016** — Open-sourced dbt (data build tool) on GitHub
- **2016** — Published 'Building a Mature Analytics Workflow' - founding essay of analytics engineering
- **2019** — dbt surpassed 1,000+ users growing 3x year-over-year
- **2020** — Raised $12.9M Series A; launched dbt Cloud
- **2020** — Raised $29.5M Series B
- **2021** — Raised $150M Series C at $1.5B valuation; rebranded from Fishtown Analytics to dbt Labs
- **2022** — Raised $222M Series D at $4.2B valuation (investors: Sequoia, a16z, Altimeter, Snowflake, Databricks, Salesforce Ventures)
- **2024** — dbt Labs exceeded $100M ARR; Coalesce conference hit 11,000+ attendees
- **2025** — Announced all-stock merger with Fivetran; committed dbt Core to Apache 2.0 license forever
- **2025** — Transitioned to Co-Founder and President of combined dbt Labs + Fivetran entity

## Achievements

- Co-created dbt, one of the world's most widely used open-source data transformation tools, adopted by 80,000+ teams
- Pioneered and popularized the 'analytics engineer' job title and discipline
- Built a $4.2B company starting from a $10,000 personal investment
- Bootstrapped for 4+ years before raising venture capital, highly unusual for a high-growth software company
- Grew dbt Labs from $0 to over $100M ARR
- Raised $410M total across 4 funding rounds from top-tier investors
- Founded Coalesce, dbt's annual conference that grew to 11,000+ attendees
- Built the Analytics Engineering Roundup newsletter to 30,000+ subscribers since 2015
- Committed dbt Core to Apache 2.0 open-source license permanently
- Merged dbt Labs with Fivetran to create a data infrastructure company approaching $600M ARR

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Serving as Co-Founder and President of the combined dbt Labs + Fivetran entity, overseeing community and open source strategy
- **2026-01** — Combined dbt Labs + Fivetran approaching $600M ARR with 10,000+ customers, on IPO path
- **2025-10** — dbt Labs announced all-stock merger with Fivetran; Tristan to serve as President
- **2025-10** — Announced at Coalesce 2025 that dbt Core would remain Apache 2.0 licensed forever
- **2024-10** — Keynoted Coalesce 2024 in Las Vegas with 11,000+ attendees
- **2024-01** — dbt Labs surpassed $100M ARR milestone

## Links

- Website: https://roundup.getdbt.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristanhandy
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/jthandy
- GitHub: https://github.com/jthandy

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tristan-handy
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-23