Dear Okera Community,
As the CEO and co-founder of Okera, I am delighted to share with you that we have signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Databricks, the leading data and AI company, and pioneer of the Lakehouse. We are thrilled to join Databricks to further our mission of simplifying and securing data access and governance as we enter the age of AI.
From the beginning, our goal at Okera has been to empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their data by providing a unified, secure, and scalable solution for data access and governance. With the rapidly evolving data landscape and the increased excitement around AI and large language models (LLMs), joining forces with Databricks will accelerate our innovation, expand our reach, and enhance our capabilities.
When we started the company in 2016, we knew that data security and governance was an emerging, hard problem for organizations of all sizes. It was clear we needed a new way to manage, understand, and ultimately automate governing access to data. As we all enter the AI era, solving these problems well, across our entire industry, has never been more important.
My History with Databricks
As some of you may know, I worked at Databricks prior to starting Okera. Personally, it’s been an incredible journey to come back full circle. My experience at Databricks gave me a deep appreciation for their data and AI vision and their Lakehouse platform, as well as the strong cultural fit between our two organizations. It is our shared passion for innovation that brings us together to provide a comprehensive solution to help customers address their data governance and security needs across the entire data stack and across all workloads.
Over the years, Okera and Databricks have built a strong partnership, working closely together to serve our joint customers. This collaboration has enabled us to deliver seamless solutions that address the unique data access and governance challenges faced by modern enterprises. Our shared commitment to customer success has led to numerous successful joint implementations, with organizations benefiting from the powerful combination of our AI-centric data governance platform and the Databricks Lakehouse Platform.
It is good to be back.
Setting the Standard for AI-Centric Data Governance
Okera’s AI-centric data governance platform is designed to handle not just traditional data workloads, but also the unique challenges of AI workloads. The forthcoming acquisition will allow us to combine our expertise with Databricks’ leading technology, setting the standard for data governance in the AI era. Together, we will enable organizations to manage and govern their data effectively, ensuring compliance and security and allowing customers to innovate.
Our vision is to integrate Okera’s AI-centric data governance technologies with Databricks’ Unity Catalog to provide customers with a holistic solution to address their needs. We have been partners and fans of Databricks since the beginning of our journey, and we are thrilled to be joining the Databricks team to continue pioneering the path forward for AI-powered data access governance.
I want to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to our customers, partners, investors, and Okerans for their unwavering support throughout our journey. Your trust, feedback, and partnership have been instrumental in shaping Okera into what it is today. As we embark on this new chapter with Databricks, we are more committed than ever to delivering the best solutions for customers’ data access and governance needs.
The Okera team and I are truly excited about the opportunities that lie ahead, and I look forward to working closely with all of you to continue driving innovation in the data and AI space.
Sincerely,
Nong Li
Co-Founder and CEO, Okera
