Enterprise Data Intelligence Platform Alation has acquired Numbers Station to provide customers with access to AI agents running on structured data.
The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. Numbers Station, which builds AI-Native data applications, is a Series A-stage startup that has raised over $17 million in venture capital from companies such as Norwegian venture partners, Madrona and Factory.
Alation plans to integrate its Numbers Station products on its own as soon as the quarter ends, Alation co-founder and CEO Satyen Sangani told TechCrunch.
“One of the things that gave us a lot of confidence is that (the company) is built in a fundamentally complementary way.
Sangani said that while data and knowledge consumption is increasingly occurring through large-scale language models, the fact that LLM is prone to hallucinations means that companies have yet to be meaningfully adopted AI data tools. Sangani said the next phase of his company’s data management should include the translation layer between LLMS and the company’s data.
Sangani said number stations were a natural choice to offer that layer. The fact that former co-founder of Alation, Venky Ganti, worked at Numbers Station for several years was also undamaged.
“The ability to basically create (The) LLMS has the ability to communicate with the core database that fuels and operates the company. I think it’s basically a problem that you’ll solve to scale LLMS within the company,” says Sangani.
Alation began building its own AI agent last year, Sangani said that it includes data quality and documents the company is expected to release this quarter. However, by acquiring a company like Numbers Station, Alation can provide workflow automation faster.
“What we endures is all the context around all the metadata and data, this massive, awful library of connectors and all this enterprise knowledge,” Sangani said. “And what they endure is their ability to bring these LLMs, employ cutting-edge technology and manipulate that data.”
Founded in 2012, Alation currently works with customers from over 600 companies, including Nasdaq, Hertz, and Samsung. The company raises more than $300 million in venture capital from companies such as General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz and Sapphire Ventures. The company was last valued at $1.7 billion in 2022.