Alibaba buys German startup Data Artisans 💰

Chinese group Alibaba has paid €90 million to acquire Data Artisans, a Berlin-based startup that provides large-scale data streaming systems to businesses.

The deal was first reported by the European media and later confirmed by both the Chinese and the German company in posts on their blogs.

Data Artisans was founded about five years ago by the team that led the development of Apache Flink, an open-source technology for large-scale data processing. Some of the company's best-known customers include Netflix, ING, Uber and Alibaba itself.

The Chinese e-commerce multinational has worked with Data Artisans since 2016, through support work and open-source libraries that underpin the software's architecture and performance. Both companies said so in the statements confirming the acquisition.

After a record funding round of more than €6.5 million, in which Alibaba itself took part, the German company has now been bought outright. The Chinese giant is expected to use its own resources to help Data Artisans reach new horizons with open-source technology.

The goals include "expanding into new areas that have not been explored before". "Moving forward together, Data Artisans and Alibaba will not only remain strong but will also accelerate their contributions to Apache Flink, among others," said co-founders Kostas Tzoumas and Stephan Ewen.

To mark the start of this new era, Alibaba has committed to making its in-house developers available to Flink. "By drawing on the knowledge and technology of both teams and our shared passion for growing the open-source community, we are confident this approach will strengthen the growth of the Flink community, improve data processing technologies and help build an open, collaborative and constructive environment for developers around the world who are passionate about stream processing and delivering real-time applications for modern businesses," said Jingren Zhou, vice president of Alibaba Group, in a statement.

The deal follows the Chinese group's investment in MariaDB in 2017. MariaDB is another open-source startup, known for offering the most popular alternatives to MySQL, a database management system.

Although that was not a full acquisition, the partnership has already led to joint work on new products for the community, and that is the goal now too. "Especially at a time when many open-source technologies and companies are choosing a less collaborative, more closed approach, it is really great to see Alibaba committed to this area and to our mission, and eager to take Flink's technological advances to a higher level," Tzoumas and Ewen added.

Moving into open source and technology infrastructure makes sense for Alibaba. It is best known for e-commerce, but it also operates in cloud, streaming services and many other business areas. With profits of around €3 billion, the Chinese company certainly has the financial means to follow this strategy.

Asked by TechCrunch why it chose to acquire rather than continue the partnership or make one-off investments, Zhou replied that he trusts the two teams' combined ability to contribute to Flink, both in technology and in community development. "It is the vision we share and the effective working relationship that brought the two teams together," he said, adding that he values "what we learn together" and how the community has become more diverse.

And how does Alibaba respond to developers who are worried that this is one of the world's largest tech companies, based in China? "We intend to keep our absolute respect for the spirit of the Apache Flink community, as Alibaba and Data Artisans have done during the years we have worked together," the company's vice president promised.

Apparently, and from a technological point of view, this may well be a moment for developers around the world to celebrate.