Fivetran: What It Does, Who Runs It, Funding and News
Fivetran is a data infrastructure company that moves data from business apps, databases and files into cloud warehouses and data lakes for analytics and AI. George Fraser and Taylor Brown founded it in 2012, and it was part of Y Combinator's Winter 2013 batch. It is based in Oakland, California, and merged with dbt Labs in June 2026.
Fivetran is a private software company that builds automated data pipelines: it copies data out of the systems a business runs on, such as SaaS apps and databases, and loads it into cloud destinations where analysts and AI tools can use it. Y Combinator (YC) describes Fivetran as "the leader in automated data movement", and Fivetran's own releases call it "the global leader in automated data movement" (merger announcement).
Since June 1, 2026, Fivetran has operated together with dbt Labs, the company behind the dbt data transformation tool, under the name Fivetran + dbt Labs. This page sets out who started Fivetran and who leads it now, what it sells, the money it raised, the companies it bought, and its news since spring 2025.
Fivetran key facts
Detail | Source | |
|---|---|---|
Founded | 2012 | |
Founders | George Fraser and Taylor Brown | |
CEO | George Fraser, co-founder; CEO of the combined Fivetran + dbt Labs since June 1, 2026 | |
President | Tristan Handy, formerly CEO of dbt Labs, since June 1, 2026 | |
Headquarters | Oakland, California, with offices in Denver, Toronto, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Munich, Novi Sad, Bengaluru and Sydney | |
Accelerator | Y Combinator, Winter 2013 batch | |
Employees | 1,200, as listed by YC (Fivetran does not publish a count on its about page) | |
Venture funding | $730 million raised by September 2021, per Fivetran | |
Last announced valuation | $5.6 billion, September 2021 | |
Revenue | More than $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) as of September 2024; the October 2025 merger announcement said the combined company with dbt Labs would approach $600 million ARR | |
Ownership | Private and venture-backed; investors include Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Matrix Partners, ICONIQ Capital and D1 Capital Partners | |
Website |
Sources differ on a couple of these points. YC's page lists San Francisco as the location in its header, while its own description and Fivetran's about page both put headquarters in Oakland. The employee figure of 1,200 comes from YC, not from Fivetran, and predates the dbt Labs merger.
What Fivetran does
Fivetran's core product is a managed ELT (extract, load, transform) service. It extracts data from sources such as SaaS applications, databases and files, loads it into a cloud data warehouse or data lake, and keeps those pipelines running when a source's structure changes. YC's page says Fivetran handles schema drift and transformations and cites 99.9% uptime and self-healing pipelines. Customers Fivetran names in its releases include OpenAI, LVMH, Pfizer and Verizon (merger completion release).
Over 2025 and 2026 Fivetran widened the product beyond moving data in:
- Reverse ETL. Through the Census acquisition, Fivetran added sending prepared data from the warehouse back into business tools (Census release).
- Transformation. Tobiko Data brought SQLMesh and SQLGlot, and the dbt Labs merger brought dbt, which dbt Labs says more than 100,000 data teams use (merger completion release).
- Managed Data Lake Service. Fivetran manages Apache Iceberg tables in a customer's own cloud storage; the service is generally available (dbt Summit 2026 release).
- Tools for AI agents. In 2026 the company introduced Agents Schema, an open-source standard for a shared context layer for AI agents, and Fivetran Context Layer, in private beta as of September 2026 (dbt Summit 2026 release).
Who runs Fivetran
Co-founder George Fraser leads Fivetran as chief executive. Fivetran's releases have named him CEO since at least its 2018 Series A (Series A release), and he stayed CEO when the dbt Labs merger closed on June 1, 2026, with dbt Labs' Tristan Handy as President (merger completion release). The table lists executives named in Fivetran's own releases.
Name | Role | Named in |
|---|---|---|
George Fraser | Co-founder and CEO | |
Tristan Handy | President (formerly CEO of dbt Labs) | |
Taylor Brown | Co-founder and COO | |
Anjan Kundavaram | Chief Product Officer, appointed May 2024; Chief Product Officer of Fivetran + dbt Labs in September 2026 | |
Suresh Seshadri | Chief Financial Officer, appointed February 2025 | |
Anand Mehta | Chief People Officer, appointed February 2025 | |
Simon Quinton | General Manager, EMEA, appointed February 2025 | |
Monica Ohara | Chief Marketing Officer, appointed May 2025 |
Fivetran's about page does not list its executives, so titles other than Fraser's, Handy's and Kundavaram's are as of the release that announced them and may have changed since the merger. Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, joined Fivetran's board with the 2019 Series B (Series B release).
Fivetran funding history
Fivetran says it was mostly funded by its own revenue until December 2018, when it closed its first venture round (Series A release). It then announced four venture rounds. By Fivetran's own count it had raised $730 million in total by September 2021, a little more than the four rounds below add up to; the releases don't break down the difference. The dbt Labs merger in 2026 was an all-stock deal, and financial terms were not disclosed.
Round | Date | Amount | Led by, or details |
|---|---|---|---|
Series A | December 4, 2018 | $15 million | Matrix Partners; Ilya Sukhar of Matrix joined the board (Fivetran release) |
Series B | September 24, 2019 | $44 million | Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with Matrix Partners and CEAS Investments (Fivetran release) |
Series C | June 30, 2020 | $100 million at a $1.2 billion valuation | a16z and General Catalyst, with CEAS Investments and Matrix Partners; total raised $163 million (Fivetran release) |
Series D | September 20, 2021 | $565 million at a $5.6 billion valuation | a16z, with General Catalyst, CEAS Investments and Matrix Partners, and new investors ICONIQ Capital, D1 Capital Partners and YC Continuity (Y Combinator's growth fund); total raised $730 million (Fivetran release) |
Fivetran acquisitions
- HVR, announced September 20, 2021: an enterprise data replication company, for $700 million in cash and stock (Fivetran release).
- Census, announced May 1, 2025: a San Francisco reverse ETL company founded in 2018, for undisclosed cash and equity; co-founder and CEO Boris Jabes joined to help lead Fivetran's data activation strategy (Fivetran release).
- Tobiko Data, announced September 3, 2025: the open-source company behind SQLMesh and SQLGlot; terms were not disclosed (Fivetran release).
- dbt Labs, announced October 13, 2025, completed June 1, 2026: an all-stock merger approved by both companies' boards and shareholders (announcement, completion release).
Recent Fivetran news
- May 15, 2025: Monica Ohara, formerly a growth marketing leader at Shopify and CMO of WordPress.com, joined as Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to COO Taylor Brown (Fivetran release).
- May 13, 2026: Fivetran said it plans to become steward of the Great Expectations open-source data quality community and its GX Core project, which it says will stay open source (Fivetran release).
- June 1, 2026: The dbt Labs merger closed. The same release announced dbt Core v2.0 in alpha under the Apache 2.0 license, dbt State, dbt Wizard and Agents Schema (Fivetran release).
- June 16, 2026: Databricks named Fivetran its 2026 ISV Customer Impact Partner of the Year at Data + AI Summit (Fivetran release).
- September 16, 2026: At dbt Summit 2026 in Las Vegas, Fivetran + dbt Labs made dbt v2 and dbt State generally available and opened private betas of Lake Compute, a single-node SQL engine built on DuckDB, and Fivetran Context Layer (Fivetran release).
Media inquiries go to press@fivetran.com, the contact listed on Fivetran's press releases.
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Get MerlinFrequently asked questions
Who founded Fivetran?
George Fraser and Taylor Brown founded Fivetran in 2012, according to the company's about page. Y Combinator lists Fivetran in its Winter 2013 batch.
Who is the CEO of Fivetran?
Fivetran's chief executive is co-founder George Fraser. He remained CEO after the merger with dbt Labs closed on June 1, 2026, with former dbt Labs CEO Tristan Handy as President.
Is Fivetran a public company?
No. Fivetran has not listed its shares and is funded by venture investors; its largest announced round was a $565 million Series D in September 2021 at a $5.6 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Did Fivetran merge with dbt Labs?
Yes. Fivetran and dbt Labs announced an all-stock merger on October 13, 2025 and completed it on June 1, 2026. The combined company initially operates as Fivetran + dbt Labs.
Where is Fivetran headquartered?
Fivetran's headquarters is in Oakland, California. It also lists offices in Denver, Toronto, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Munich, Novi Sad, Bengaluru and Sydney.