ZEPL

ZEPL, formerly known as NFLabs, was established in 2010 by Moonsoo Lee and Sejun Ra, the creators of the open-source project Apache Zeppelin. The company's foundation is deeply rooted in the founders' experience with data analytics; Sejun Ra, prior to co-founding the company, held leadership roles at Akamai Technologies, which provided him with a broad perspective on data-driven business needs. Lee, the creator of Apache Zeppelin, brought his technical expertise in building data science tools. Their joint vision was to address the growing demand from enterprise users of Apache Zeppelin for a more robust, collaborative, and secure platform.

The company operates as a cloud-based data science and analytics platform, serving data scientists, analysts, and engineers. Its business model centers on providing a subscription-based, self-service notebook solution that enhances the capabilities of open-source tools like Apache Zeppelin and Jupyter. This platform enables teams to perform exploratory, code-centric work using languages such as Python, R, and Scala while incorporating enterprise-grade features. Zepl's product is a collaborative, cloud-native notebook that facilitates the building of machine learning models and the analysis of large datasets. Key features include real-time collaborative editing, version control, security management, and the ability to share notebooks with all dependencies intact. This allows for seamless collaboration between technical and non-technical team members. The platform is designed to connect to various cloud data warehouses, enabling users to apply data science and machine learning for use cases like predictive analytics, marketing analytics, and sales forecasting.

A significant milestone in ZEPL's history was its acquisition by DataRobot on May 11, 2021. This event marked a strategic move to integrate ZEPL's code-centric notebook capabilities into DataRobot's broader enterprise AI platform. The acquisition was intended to provide advanced data scientists with greater flexibility to use their own code within DataRobot's ecosystem, bridging the gap between automated machine learning and custom, code-first development. Before the acquisition, ZEPL had successfully raised a total of $10.6 million in funding over several rounds, with investors including Vertex Ventures, Translink Capital, and Big Basin Capital.

Keywords: data science platform, Apache Zeppelin, collaborative notebooks, data analytics, machine learning models, Python, R, Scala, enterprise AI, big data analytics, code-centric data science, cloud data warehouse, predictive analytics, data exploration, DataRobot, Sejun Ra, Moonsoo Lee, data visualization, model deployment, version control