// Alibaba acquires Berlin based startup Data Artisans for €90 million (£80.90 million)
// It has been working with the open-source Big Data company since 2016, which supplies services to Uber, Zalando and Ebay
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Alibaba has purchased Berlin-based technology startup Data Artisans for €90 million (£80.90 million) in a move to “accelerate contributions” to open-source Big Data.
The Chinese ecommerce giant has reportedly been working with Data Artisans since 2016 and is understood to have been involved in a Series B funding round for the startup last year.
Founded in 2014, Data Artisans offer open-source large-scale data processing solutions for enterprises including Alibaba, Uber, Zalando and Ebay.
It utilises the Apache Flink system, which Data Artisans’ co-founders Kostas Tzoumas and Stephan Ewen spearheaded as part of its leading development team.
The pair said the partnership will allow them to expand into “new areas that we have not explored in the past and make sure that Flink becomes a more valuable data processing framework for the modern data-driven, real-time enterprise.
“Moving forward together, data Artisans and Alibaba will not only continue, but accelerate contributions to Apache Flink and open source Big Data,” they added.
Alibaba Group’s vice president Jingren Zhou added: “By leveraging the technology expertise of both teams and shared passion to develop the open-source community, we are confident that this strategic tie-in will further strengthen the growth of the Flink community, accelerate the data-processing technologies and help bolster an open, collaborative and constructive environment for global developers who are passionate about stream processing and enabling real-time applications for modern enterprises.”
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