Dagster Labs

Dagster Labs, formerly known as Elementl, is the company behind Dagster, an open-source data orchestration platform. Founded in 2018 by Nick Schrock, who previously co-created GraphQL at Facebook, the company was established to address the complexities and improve the developer experience in data engineering. Schrock's experience at Facebook leading the Product Infrastructure team, which produced tools like React and GraphQL, informed his vision for creating a more structured and maintainable approach to data pipelines. In early 2022, Pete Hunt, a co-founder of the React project and founder of Smyte (acquired by Twitter), joined as CEO, with Schrock transitioning to the CTO role to focus on product and engineering.

Dagster is designed as a cloud-native orchestrator for the entire development lifecycle of data assets, such as tables, machine learning models, and reports. Unlike traditional orchestrators that are task-based, Dagster employs a declarative, asset-centric programming model. This approach allows users to define pipelines as a graph of data assets, providing integrated data lineage, observability, and making them easier to test and maintain. The platform is Python-first but supports cross-language orchestration through its Dagster Pipes feature. It is built to be used at every stage of the data development lifecycle, from local development and testing to production deployment. Key features include a declarative programming model, integrated lineage and observability, robust testing capabilities, and a modular architecture.

The company operates on an open-core business model. The primary product is the open-source Dagster framework, which is freely available. Dagster Labs generates revenue through Dagster Cloud, a hosted and managed service that provides additional enterprise-grade features. These premium features include advanced collaboration tools, security functionalities like role-based access control (RBAC), audit logs, and dedicated support. Dagster Cloud is available in serverless or hybrid deployments. The company serves a wide range of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, across industries like finance, healthcare, retail, and technology.

Dagster Labs has secured significant funding to fuel its growth. After an initial seed round, the company raised a $14 million Series A in November 2021 and a $33 million Series B in May 2023, bringing its total funding to approximately $49 million. Key investors include Georgian, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Slow Ventures.

Keywords: data orchestration, data asset management, data pipeline, ETL, workflow automation, data engineering, open-source, Python framework, data observability, data lineage, cloud-native orchestrator, machine learning workflows, data quality, declarative programming, CI/CD for data, Nick Schrock, Pete Hunt, Elementl, GraphQL, data integration, data development lifecycle, data governance, scalable data platform, asset-based orchestration