Datadog, a prominent cloud monitoring and security platform, has announced its acquisition of Metaplane, an AI-driven data observability startup, for an undisclosed sum.
In an official statement, Datadog highlighted that this acquisition accelerates its venture into data observability, complementing its recent product launches. Metaplane will continue to serve its current and future clients under the newly branded “Metaplane by Datadog.”
“Observability has evolved beyond its traditional role for developers and IT teams, becoming crucial for data teams managing increasingly intricate and business-critical workflows,” stated Michael Whetten, Datadog’s VP. “The complexity will only grow as more businesses implement AI applications. By integrating observability across both applications and data, Datadog aims to help organizations develop reliable AI systems.”
Founded in 2020 by MIT graduate Kevin Hu, former HubSpot engineer Peter Casinelli, and ex-Appcues developer Guru Mahendran, Metaplane initially started as a “customer success” tool focused on analyzing data to reduce churn. After participating in Y Combinator and adapting through the pandemic, Metaplane shifted its focus towards data analytics tools.
Metaplane utilizes anomaly detection AI models trained mainly on historical metadata to monitor data. It tracks data lineage within data warehouses—systems used for reporting and analysis—and alerts stakeholders of issues through preferred tools like Slack and PagerDuty. Users can tag alerts as expected changes, enabling Metaplane’s system to learn over time.
Before its acquisition, Metaplane secured $22.2 million in funding from investors such as Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, Flybridge Capital Partners, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, and HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah. As of early 2023, the Boston-based startup employed around 10 people.
“Our goal at Metaplane is to help companies build trust in the data that drives their operations,” Hu commented. “Partnering with Datadog allows us to extend data observability to many more companies, fostering closer collaboration between data and software teams.”
This acquisition marks Datadog’s second of the year, following its January purchase of Quickwit, an open-source, cloud-native log search engine.
Expanding its data observability capabilities aligns with Datadog’s broader strategy. Despite surpassing earnings expectations recently, the company’s full-year 2025 revenue guidance fell short of market predictions. Observability represents a robust and burgeoning market, potentially offering substantial revenue opportunities for Datadog.
Grand View Research estimates the market for data observability tools was valued at $2.14 billion in 2023, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 12.2% from 2024 to 2030. However, Datadog faces stiff competition from companies like Monte Carlo, Cribl, Manta, Observe, Better Stack, Coralogix, and Unravel Data. Datadog’s challenge will be to distinguish its data observability offerings, a goal it is pursuing through strategic acquisitions like Metaplane and internal initiatives like job and stream monitoring.
(Source: TechCrunch)
