Data Meets AI: The Foundation for the Next Infrastructure Icon
PLUS: Former Midjourney's founding team building something new
Behind The Scenes
The rise of generational data infrastructure companies often coincides with major platform or paradigm shifts. This makes sense intuitively, as such technological transformations can spark R&D breakthroughs, giving rise to category-defining industry leaders. A prime example is Snowflake, a publicly traded company with a ~$62 billion market cap. Leveraging the cloud revolution, Snowflake’s founders built a cloud-native data warehouse from the ground up, pioneering an architecture that separated storage and compute. Similarly, Databricks, valued at $62 billion in its Series J round, emerged during the “Big Data” movement and has since become a dominant force in the industry.
Interestingly, neither Snowflake nor Databricks originated from existing companies. Snowflake was incubated by Sutter Hill Ventures—one of the most successful cases of the venture studio model—while Databricks has academic roots, built on Apache Spark, which was developed at UC Berkeley.
During the early stages of a technological revolution, the infrastructure layer tends to be particularly dynamic, attracting significant investment and attention. This is driven by the idea that foundational technical innovations must come first before downstream applications can flourish. The notion that “infrastructure inspires applications” follows a logical sequence—consider the vast ecosystem of applications now built on top of Snowflake and Databricks. However, this relationship is not strictly one-directional. In reality, infrastructure and application development evolve in deeply interconnected, responsive cycles, influencing and reinforcing each other.
(This article was written by Janelle Teng from Next Big Teng. For full version of this article, you can read them here)
Geeks of the Week
Startup Name: The Librarian (Please reachout to aizuddin@stellacapital.io for introduction)
Geography: Singapore
One-liner: Supercharge your day with your own AI personal assistant.
Founder(s) Background: EiR at Golden Gate Ventures ($250mil fund AUM), CTO at Karat ($1.1bil valuation at peak), VP of Engineering at Yelp.
Startup Name: MARBL
Geography: UK
One-liner: MARBL's AI-powered Concierge sells, schedules, and communicates with your customers 24/7 via live chat.
Founder(s) Background: Global Head of Retail (B2C) Marketing at Revolut.
Startup Name: Neptune
Geography: US
One-liner: Building an AI-powered tools with expert attorneys to transform an intimidating legal process into an opportunity for couples to align on their shared future.
Founder(s) Background: Principal at Nyca Partners ($870mil fund AUM).
Founder(s) building in stealth
Episode of the Week
Saurabh Jain is a seasoned leader in technology and healthcare, currently serving as the Executive Chairman of Opyl (ASX: OPL), a company pioneering AI-driven solutions for clinical trials. Appointed to this role on April 30, 2024, Saurabh spearheads Opyl’s mission to transform clinical trials through advanced AI technologies. His leadership has been instrumental in the development and launch of Opyl’s flagship product, TrialKey.
Throughout his extensive 25-year career, Saurabh has held various senior executive positions, including CEO and Executive Director roles. His experience includes founding Netpro Express, an internet service provider later acquired by Telstra, and serving on multiple ASX boards and private companies. Known for his entrepreneurial acumen, Saurabh has a deep technical background that drives transformative change and accelerates business growth.
His current focus is on enhancing the commercialization of TrialKey and elevating Opyl’s global footprint. Saurabh holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Software Engineering), an Executive Master of Business Administration, and a Master of Business Technology from the Australian Graduate School of Management, UNSW. Under his guidance, Opyl has engaged in strategic partnerships, participated in high-profile industry events, and expanded its market presence in both the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
This edition is brought to you in partnership with Stella Capital.