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Datadog Metaplane Acquisition Actualized
On Wednesday, the Datadog Metaplane acquisition became a reality for the cloud monitoring and security platform. Datadog is an AI-powered data observability startup. It was founded by a graduate of MIT and a former Appcues developer in 2020.
As of the time of filing this report, Datadog had not disclosed the financial terms of the deal. But in a press statement, Datadog said that the deal “accelerates” its expansion into data observability. It also contends that it helps to build on the launch of related products. Customers will now access a rebranded “Metaplane by Datadog” offering. In the same vein, the brand will continue to serve its existing and new customers.
The VP of Datadog, Michael Whetten, said in a statement that “Observability is no longer just for developers and IT teams. It’s now an essential part of data teams’ day-to-day responsibilities as they manage increasingly complex and business-critical workflows.” “This complexity will get more attention as more businesses deploy AI applications. When we unify observability across applications and data, Datadog will assist organizations in building dependable AI systems.” This is the rationale behind the Datadog Metaplane acquisition.
Metaplane’s Sojourn to the Deal
TechPolyp notes that MIT graduate Kevin Hu, former HubSpot engineer Peter Casinelli, and ex-Appcues developer Mahendran founded Metaplane in 2020. They initially launched the company as a “customer success” product, imagining that it would analyze firms’ data to prevent churn. However, after going through Y Combinator, the pandemic hit, and Metaplane pivoted. Nevertheless, it continued to build data analytics-focused tools.
TechPolyp also notes that Metaplane monitors data using anomaly detection AI models trained primarily on historical metadata. It attempts to establish lineages in a data warehouse. For the record, a data warehouse is the system used for reporting and data analysis. Moving forward, Metaplane will notify stakeholders of issues through their preferred communication channel. These can be Slack, PagerDuty, and others. Users can mark any alert as an expected change or otherwise from these tools. Consequently, Metaplane’s system will learn over time.
Before the discussion around the Datadog Metaplane acquisition started, Metaplane had raised $22.2 million from investors. They targeted Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, Flybridge Capital Partners, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, and HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah. The Boston-based startup had about employees as of January 2023.
Hu said in a statement that their company takes solace in helping companies ensure trust in the data that powers their business. He added, “Joining forces with Datadog enables us to bring data observability to tens of thousands more companies. TechPolyp notes that the Datadog Metaplane acquisition will bring data teams and software teams closer together.
Market Growth and Intense Competition
The Datadog Metaplane acquisition is the company’s second acquisition this year. It is worth noting that the company acquired Quickwit, an open-source, cloud-native log search engine, in January.
It’s a perfect fit for Datadog to broaden its footprint in data observability, as this is a large and healthy market. This is also one that could become a significant source of business for Datadog down the line. The company recently reported a substantial net profit. However, its full-year 2025 revenue forecast fell below what analysts had expected.
Grand View Research reported that the data observability tools market was worth $2.14 billion in 2023. It also noted that the market is expected to grow at a 12.2% compound annual growth rate between 2024 and 2030. The competition is here; it’s obviously stiff. Significant stakeholders include Monte Carlo, Cribl, Manta, Observe, Better Stack, Coralogix, and Unravel Data.
The Datadog Metaplane acquisition will further help Datadog address its challenge in differentiating its data observability products sufficiently. Interestingly, the company can achieve this development through both acquisitions and in-house projects, such as data jobs and data stream monitoring.
Mukesh Ambani recently planned to build the world’s largest data center in India through his company, Reliance Industries. In the future, this initiative will be a perfect opportunity for Datadog to further consolidate its operational techniques and expand into the data-driven world.
