Dremio
Unicorn · $2BFounded 2015 · 360 employees on LinkedIn · 12 known investors
Dremio provides an Agentic Lakehouse platform that enables fast, governed access to enterprise data across multiple sources without ETL, with an AI Semantic Layer for business context and autonomous infrastructure management. The platform serves knowledge workers and AI agents seeking instant access to trusted data without traditional data platform complexity.
Also known as Dremio Corporation
Founders & leadership
Dremio was founded in 2015 by Tomer Shiran.
Investors · 12
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Dremio develops an open data lakehouse platform, marketed as the "Agentic Lakehouse," that combines an Apache Arrow-based intelligent query engine, an AI semantic layer, an open catalog powered by Apache Polaris, and a built-in AI agent. The platform federates queries across enterprise data sources without moving data, supports structured, semi-structured and unstructured data, and runs natively on Apache Iceberg without format conversion. It is offered both as a fully managed cloud service (Dremio Cloud) and as self-managed software [0][1][3].
Product capabilities described by the company include Autonomous Reflections that observe query patterns to accelerate queries without manual tuning, automatic Iceberg table optimization (clustering, compaction, vacuum, variant shredding), serverless scaling, end-to-end caching, and access controls that propagate from client to source, including fine-grained and role-based controls and OAuth token flow via credential vending. Agent connectivity is provided through an MCP interface (which Dremio states was the first in the industry), a CLI for coding agents, and integrations with assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini [0][1].
Dremio's documentation frames the product as self-service analytics for data teams: analysts explore and visualize data with sub-second query response times, data engineers ingest and transform data in the data lake with DML support, and users join lake data with data in external databases. The company positions its reliance on community-driven standards (Apache Iceberg, Apache Arrow) as a way to avoid vendor lock-in [4]. Dremio describes itself as a lead contributor to Apache Iceberg and co-creator of Apache Arrow and Apache Polaris [3].
Founding story
Per a third-party profile, Dremio was founded in 2015 by Tomer Shiran and his team to address the inefficiencies of ETL processes and expensive data warehousing that required duplicating and consolidating data before analysis. The company's origin is tied to its role as an original creator of Apache Arrow, an open-source columnar in-memory format, which shaped a design philosophy of working with existing IT investments rather than replacing them [7].
Business model
Dremio sells software to enterprises, available as a fully managed cloud service or self-managed deployment, with a free entry point (Dremio Cloud free tier offering $400 in credits with no credit card required) and paid enterprise offerings [0][1]. A third-party profile characterizes the model as subscription-based software with freemium and open-source offerings converting to premium subscriptions for advanced security, performance and support [7].
Subscription software revenue, per a third-party profile that describes freemium and open-source entry points monetized through premium enterprise subscriptions [7]. Company sources confirm a free Dremio Cloud tier alongside managed cloud and self-managed commercial offerings [0][1].
Traction
Company-reported figures include 2,000+ companies, 150,000+ users and 99.99% uptime [3], and "thousands" of customer organizations [0][1]. Published customer outcomes include Amazon's SCOT Finance Analytics team seeing 10x faster queries (60 seconds to 4-6 seconds) and 1,000+ supported users; Maersk running 1.6M queries daily across 100+ nodes at 99.97% uptime; RWE running 400,000 queries daily over 2,500 unified sources for 1,300 users; Shell processing 6-8 billion records in minutes; and E.ON reporting a 95% reduction in time-to-insight [0][1]. At its 2022 Series E the company said it had doubled revenue for several years in a row and accelerated hiring [5]. A third-party profile reports growth from about 80 employees in 2020 to roughly 400 people at later funding rounds [7].
Latest developments
Dremio's website displays the notice "Dremio is now part of SAP" together with a blog announcement that SAP intends to acquire Dremio [0][1]. Product-level developments described in the sources include the Agentic Lakehouse positioning, an AI Semantic Layer, an Open Catalog powered by Apache Polaris, a built-in AI agent, Dremio CLI for coding agents, MCP integration with third-party assistants, and Autonomous Reflections plus Iceberg clustering for automatic optimization [0][1][7]. Current documentation covers version 26.x [4].
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Dremio positions itself in the data lakehouse category, historically as a "data lake engine"/SQL lakehouse vendor and more recently around agentic analytics [5][6][7]. A third-party profile describes it as a lightweight query engine with a semantic layer rather than a full data platform, contrasting it with Databricks and Denodo [7]. Company materials cite adoption by thousands of organizations, including Shell, TD Bank, Michelin, Amazon, Maersk, E.ON and RWE [0][1][3]; earlier and third-party sources list Airbus, Goldman Sachs, Unilever, Samsung, Microsoft and Blackrock as customers [5][7].
Stated differentiators are Iceberg-native execution on an Arrow-based engine without format conversion, an open catalog based on Apache Polaris for cross-engine interoperability, a shared AI semantic layer so multiple agents draw on consistent definitions, autonomous self-management (Autonomous Reflections, automatic table optimization, serverless scaling), end-to-end propagation of user identity and permissions to AI agents, and query federation that avoids ETL and data duplication [0][1][3]. Dremio claims to have shipped the industry's first MCP interface for agent connectivity [0][1]. Its co-creator role in Apache Arrow, Iceberg and Polaris is presented as an open-standards, anti-lock-in position [3][4][7].
Technology
Arrow-based query engine that processes Apache Iceberg data natively without format conversion; open catalog built on Apache Polaris supporting read/write across any Iceberg REST engine; AI semantic layer supplying metrics, definitions and relationships as shared business context; query federation across sources without data movement; automatic Iceberg table optimization (clustering, compaction, vacuum, variant shredding); Autonomous Reflections for query acceleration; serverless scaling and end-to-end caching; MCP server and CLI interfaces for AI and coding agents; identity inheritance for agents with fine-grained/role-based access control and OAuth credential vending [0][1][3]. The platform supports DML operations in the lake and joins between lake data and external databases [4]. Dremio is described as a lead contributor to Apache Iceberg and co-creator of Apache Arrow and Apache Polaris [3]; a third-party profile also credits it with Project Nessie for Git-like data versioning [7].
Go-to-market
Self-service, product-led entry via a free Dremio Cloud tier ($400 in credits, no credit card) and free trials, combined with enterprise sales motions (contact-us, demos, "talk to an expert") and executive-level marketing content [0][1][3]. Dremio maintains an open-source distribution (Dremio OSS) and a public community forum for user support and feature discussion [2], plus training through Dremio University [4]. Leadership includes dedicated CMO and CRO roles overseeing brand, demand generation and global sales [3].
Large enterprises and their data teams — data analysts, data engineers, and business/knowledge workers — as well as AI agents needing governed access to enterprise data. Referenced customers span energy, banking, manufacturing, logistics, retail and technology (Shell, TD Bank, Michelin, Amazon, Maersk, E.ON, RWE, Unilever, Samsung, Microsoft) [0][1][3][4][5][7].
History
Third-party data places Dremio's founding in 2015 in Santa Clara, California, with an initial equity round in September 2015 [7]. The company raised a $70 million Series C announced in March 2020, which coincided with the arrival of a new CEO according to contemporaneous press coverage summarized by the company [6][7]; a Series D followed in 2021 [7]. In January 2022 Dremio announced a $160 million Series E at a $2 billion pre-money valuation, bringing total funding to more than $421 million by the company's account (third-party sources cite $407M-$410M across six rounds) [5][7]. Product positioning evolved from "data lake engine" and SQL lakehouse toward an agentic, Iceberg-native lakehouse with an AI semantic layer and MCP-based agent connectivity [4][5][6][7]. Dremio's website now states the company is part of SAP and links to an announcement that SAP intends to acquire Dremio [0][1].
Risks & controversies
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Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Founder mafia
2 people who came through Dremio went on to found or lead other companies.
Competitors · 6
by search overlap
Companies competing with Dremio for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 3
launches, deals, and filingsDremio's website carries the notice 'Dremio is now part of SAP' with a linked blog post headlined 'SAP Intends to Acquire Dremio'. No transaction value or closing details are given in the sources.
Series E round of $160 million announced one year after the prior round, bringing total funding to more than $421 million; the company cited revenue doubling for several consecutive years and accelerated hiring, and listed Airbus, Goldman Sachs and Unilever as customers.
$160M source ↗
Dremio announced a $70 million Series C growth round, widely covered by outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Term Sheet, Axios and VentureBeat; coverage framed the round as funding global expansion and noted a new CEO at the Santa Clara-based company.
$70M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Dremiodremio.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Dremio do?
- Dremio sells an Iceberg-native, agent-oriented data lakehouse platform for governed SQL analytics without data movement.
- Who founded Dremio?
- Dremio was founded by Tomer Shiran in 2015.
- Who are Dremio's investors?
- Dremio's investors include Sapphire Ventures, Insight Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Alpha Square Group, Cisco Investments, DTCP, Geodesic Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and 4 more.