Databricks acquires low-code, no-code company to expand Lakehouse platform for citizen data scientists

Databricks has announced the acquisition of German start-up 8080 Labs.

8080 Labs is the maker of bamboolib, a UI-based data science tool that enables fast data exploration and transformation with clicks, not code. The new UI-driven capabilities will be integrated across Databricks' Lakehouse platform, marking the company's expansion into the low-code, no-code space.

Databricks says the strategic acquisition broadens the accessibility of its Lakehouse platform to a wider audience of citizen data scientists and data teams, which it says enables further democratisation of data and AI throughout the enterprise. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

With the acquisition of 8080 Labs, Databricks says it's lowering the barrier to entry for more people to uncover actionable insights from their data with only a few clicks. 8080 Labs' flagship product, bamboolib, creates no-code workflows while integrating with the Python ecosystem and generating production-ready code behind the scenes.

Databricks plans to integrate the no-code capabilities with its new AutoML, visualisation, and dashboard offerings to extend the UI-based features across its Lakehouse platform.
 
"We're thrilled to welcome 8080 Labs to the team as we accelerate the adoption and accessibility of Lakehouse as the data architecture of the future," says Databricks CEO and co-founder, Ali Ghodsi.

"Together with last year's acquisition of Redash, we're broadening the focus of our user base to a wider audience that prefers low-code and no-code solutions. Bringing simple capabilities to Databricks is a critical step in empowering more people within an organisation to easily analyse and explore large sets of data, regardless of expertise."

Databricks says citizen data scientists play a vital role in an organisation's ability to streamline and produce machine learning at scale, bridging the gap between analysts and highly specialised data scientists.

"As data and AI become a strategic priority for businesses of every size, everyone within an organisation must be empowered to ask questions and take action based on data," says Ghodsi.

"While many tools for citizen data scientists only offer exploratory capabilities, the acquisition of 8080 Labs combined with Databricks' unique 'glass box' approach to AutoML will empower people to perform comprehensive data tasks with ease, from data analysis and data transformation to machine learning workflows.

He says the platform automatically generates high-quality code behind the scenes, allowing data teams to quickly put their key findings and results to work without the added demand on expert engineers to reimplement the process for production.

8080 Labs co-founder, Tobias Krabel, says they founded 8080 Labs to bring simplicity to complex data tasks and make the power of data science and machine learning accessible to data teams of any skill set.

"With open source roots and a vision to reshape the data landscape with the Lakehouse category, we see endless opportunities with Databricks and could not be more excited to join the team on this journey."

The acquisition is Databrick's latest addition to a growing pool of engineering talent in the EMEA market. Earlier this year, the team from Cubonacci, a data science solutions start-up based in Amsterdam, also joined Databricks to support the development of scalable and secure data storage and machine learning capabilities. Amsterdam is now home to Databricks' second-largest engineering office.

Databricks recently raised $1.6 billion at a $38 billion valuation to help the company accelerate the global adoption and development of its Lakehouse platform.