Co-founder and CEO Tristan Handy. Image: DBT Labs
Co-founded by Tristan Handy in 2016, DBT Labs – which just opened its first EU hub in Dublin – counts among its cloud customers BCG, Siemens and Urban Outfitters.
Last week, DBT Labs became the latest high-value US start-up to open an EU office by the banks of the Liffey. Backed by some big names in the VC world across the pond, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, the data management company is worth around $4.2bn based on its most recent valuation in 2022.
But the story of DBT Labs is one of humble beginnings. Started as a data consultancy firm called Fishtown Analytics in 2016, the start-up was founded by Tristan Handy, Drew Banin and Connor McArthur, former colleagues at RJMetrics.
“DBT began as an open-source tool that we actually made for ourselves, but it eventually became very popular among data practitioners,” says Handy, who is the company’s chief executive.
“We realised we had something special, and in 2021 we rebranded Fishtown Analytics to DBT Labs. The company was founded with a specific mission: to empower data practitioners to create and disseminate organisational knowledge.”
‘Unlocking potential’
According to Handy, while data is critical to running any modern tech organisation, too few people are empowered to make decisions with data using a mature analytics workflow.
“Workflows are constructed with people and tools coming together into best practices, and what we’ve been doing for the past eight years is defining a set of best practices, teaching those to hundreds of thousands of data practitioners, and building the tools to help them live out those practices every day,” Handy explains.
“In the process, we’ve helped tens of thousands of companies, but just as importantly, we’ve changed the careers of countless individuals as they’ve levelled up, made dramatically more impact, and gotten paid what they’re actually worth. These stories of unlocking human potential are what motivate me day in day out.”
Dublin marks the first European expansion for DBT Labs and will be the start-up’s main hub on the continent, particularly for its EMEA sales team. While headquartered in Philadelphia, it also has offices in San Francisco, New York, and soon, Austin.
But the story doesn’t end at just having a new office in the Docklands. Brandon Sweeney, president and chief operating officer of DBT Labs, told me during a visit to Dublin last week that the start-up also has plans to hire more staff to its hub here soon.
“What we’re also pretty excited about in Dublin is language capability. As we look to scale into and across Europe, obviously language matters as we start to capture key leading customers in each of the countries that we look to go build direct operations in and we’re going to do that based out of Dublin here,” he said.
“Over time, I hope we can ultimately export some teams where people want to grow their careers if they want to move back into their different countries where they have language proficiency and fluency. We’d love to support that.”
From BCG to Urban Outfitters
Handy says that he is excited about where his company is today – and about all the traction it has gathered of late.
For instance, its cloud customer count now exceeds 4,100 and includes heavyweights in global business such as Anheuser-Busch Group, Boston Consulting Group, Fanduel, Fifth Third Bank, Roche, Siemens, Under Armour and Urban Outfitters. Overall, DBT’s workflow platform is used by more than 40,000 companies around the world, according to Sweeney.
“We’re also fortunate to have tremendous companies supporting us. Snowflake and Databricks are both key partners and investors, and we’re fortunate to have been backed by Altimeter, Amplify Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia,” Handy says.
“We’ve continued to expand our leadership team, recently bringing on a new president and COO [Sweeney], CTO and CRO. And, as you know, we’re looking to maintain global growth with a new office opening in New York and a new office coming in Texas. And we couldn’t be more thrilled to have just opened our first space here in Dublin.”
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