DataRobot looks to enterprise AI coders with Zepl acquisition

BREAKING -- AI vendor DataRobot today said it acquired Zepl, a cloud data science and analytics platform vendor.

The acquisition, DataRobot's eighth since 2017, gives AI and machine learning coders Zepl's cloud-native, self-service notebook to use their own code in Python, R and Scale while using DataRobot's enterprise features such as collaboration, versioning and security.

DataRobot, based in Boston, did not disclose the amount it paid for Zepl, based in San Jose, Calif. Zepl has raised $13.1 million since it was founded in 2016 by the creators of Apache Zeppelin, a popular open source notebook for data and analytics.

DataRobot revealed the acquisition on the opening day of its virtual conference, AI Experience Worldwide. The vendor also introduced enhancements to its platform, including Composable ML, Continuous AI, No-Code AI App Builder and Bias and Fairness Production Monitoring.

The Zepl purchase is the latest in a string of acquisitions by DataRobot, which raised $270 million in November, bringing its market valuation to more than $2.7 billion and raising expectations that the vendor would file for an IPO.

The vendor named Dan Wright as its new CEO in March to replace co-founder Jeremy Achin.

DataRobot's major acquisitions in recent years include collaborative data management platform vendor Cursor in February 2019; machine learning model management vendor ParallelM in June 2019; and Paxata, vendor of a self-service data preparation platform, in December 2019. Also in June 2020, DataRobot acquired Boston Consulting Group's Source AI technology and entered into a strategic partnership with the firm.

Zepl raised $4 million in its most recent Series A funding round in January 2020, led by Softbank Ventures Asia and Vertex Ventures, according to Crunchbase.

Reporting in progress -- full story to follow.