Bit

Bit.io was a database software company established in 2019 and headquartered in San Francisco. The firm was founded by Adam Fletcher, who serves as CEO, and Dr. Jonathan Mortensen, the CTO. Fletcher's background includes leadership roles in engineering at Google, working on production networking and YouTube, while Mortensen is a data scientist from Stanford who has led data science teams in the medical and cybersecurity fields. The founders' direct experience with the operational difficulties of data collaboration inspired them to create a platform that simplifies data sharing and teamwork.

The company developed a shareable, serverless cloud database platform centered around PostgreSQL. Its core mission was to enable developers and data analysts to become immediately productive with data by eliminating complex configuration and setup processes. The platform targeted a range of clients, from individual developers and startups to large enterprises like Ford, Visa, and Morgan Stanley, for uses including web application development, data analysis, and low-code backends. The business model was based on usage, with premium offerings for individuals and teams based on the number of rows queried after a generous free tier.

Bit.io's main offering was a zero-config, serverless Postgres database that could be created with a single click or by dragging and dropping a data file (like CSV, XLS, or JSON). Key features included a web-based SQL editor, one-click sharing with collaborators, automatic scaling of resources based on workload, and broad compatibility with any tool that supports Postgres. The platform's design was to make creating and sharing a database as straightforward as sharing a Google Doc. In October 2022, the company announced it had raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round led by Battery Ventures and GreatPoint Ventures. By this time, it had grown to over 15,000 users who had created 30,000 databases. On May 1, 2023, Bit.io was acquired by Databricks, and subsequently, the bit.io product was sunsetted, with the team joining Databricks to work on the developer experience for its Lakehouse platform.

Keywords: serverless Postgres, cloud database, PostgreSQL platform, database collaboration, data sharing, zero-config database, Databricks acquisition, Adam Fletcher, Jonathan Mortensen, database as a service, DBaaS, web-based SQL, data ingestion, serverless database, collaborative database, data productivity, Postgres hosting, developer tools, data analysis platform