Keen
Keen (keen.io) provides a fully managed event streaming and embedded analytics API platform built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra, serving developers and product teams across B2B SaaS, IoT, media, and e-commerce.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2003
- HeadquartersSan Antonio, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Keen does
Keen (keen.io) is a fully managed event streaming and embedded analytics platform founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. The platform is built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra and exposes four core services: an Event Streaming REST API (with native Kafka producer and consumer clusters), persistent storage with multi-layer AES encryption, a Real-Time Analytics Compute API supporting count, count-unique, sum, average, percentile, funnel, multi-analysis, and extraction queries, and an Embedded Visualizations Data Viz Library for white-labeled, in-app dashboards. Data enrichment add-ons (IP-to-Geo, User Agent, URL, Referrer, Datetime parsers), uniqueness tokens for exactly-once delivery, programmatic Access Keys for tenant isolation, and web auto-collection (pageview, scroll, click, video tracking) round out the technical surface.
The company targets developers and product teams across B2B SaaS, connected devices/IoT, digital media, e-commerce, and ad-tech verticals. Named customers include Spotify, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Travis CI, Polycom, Pitney Bowes, Pandora, Mic, and Pixlee, with use cases spanning product analytics, customer-facing metrics, business operations, and events-based billing. Distribution is API-first product-led growth via self-serve sign-up and a free tier (3-month retention), supplemented by enterprise field sales through a Request a Demo motion; monetization is a hybrid of recurring subscriptions and usage-based compute with tiered per-endpoint rate limits.
Keen has raised approximately $29.2 million in disclosed venture funding across rounds from 2012 through 2016, led by Pelion Venture Partners and including Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, Heavybit, 500 Global, Bonfire Ventures, and others. In March 2020, Keen was acquired by Chargify to combine event streaming with subscription billing and enable events-based billing solutions, after which the Keen product has operated as part of Chargify's platform. Compliance posture includes EU-US Privacy Shield and GDPR commitments.
Keen firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Keen
- Legal name
- Keen
- Website
- https://keen.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2003
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Keen (keen.io) provides a fully managed event streaming and embedded analytics API platform built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra, serving developers and product teams across B2B SaaS, IoT, media, and e-commerce.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Keen industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Event Streaming and Embedded Analytics
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (513210), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Event Streaming & Pub/Sub Platforms (HDAEAIAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Data & Analytics Platforms (Data Warehousing, Lakes, Streaming) (HDABAAAF), Webhooks, Eventing & Message Streaming (BPAMAOAE)
Keywords
Where Keen is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Antonio
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Keen business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription-based SaaS: Monthly billing cycle with subscription tiers. Fees are non-refundable. Discounts available for longer-term commitments (multi-month terms). Fees stated in US Dollars.
- Usage-based Compute: Compute and query operations are usage-based. Rate limits apply per request type with different limits for ad-hoc queries (200/min), extractions (200/min), updates (10/min), deletes (10/min), and delete collection (100/min).
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free plan available |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels7 records
Keen product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Keen provides a fully managed, multi-tenant event streaming and embedded analytics platform built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra. Developers use its REST API and SDKs to collect real-time event data from any source, store it with multi-layer AES encryption, run queries and funnels via the Compute API, and embed white-labeled dashboards through the Data Viz Library. The platform eliminates the need to build and maintain custom streaming infrastructure for product analytics, customer-facing metrics, events-based billing, and IoT use cases.
Product overview
Keen is a fully managed event streaming platform built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra, offering a unified platform-plus-modules architecture. The core product consists of four interconnected services: Event Streaming (for collecting real-time data via REST API or Kafka), Persistent Storage (secure multi-layer AES encrypted storage), Real-Time Analytics/Compute API (for running queries, funnels, and multi-analyses), and Embedded Visualizations/Data Viz Library (for embedding white-labeled dashboards). These core services are supplemented by industry-specific solutions for Product Analytics, Customer-Facing Metrics, Business Operations, Events-Based Billing, B2B SaaS, and Connected Devices/IoT. Additional capabilities include built-in data enrichment add-ons (IP to Geo, User Agent, URL, Referrer, Datetime parsers) and web auto-collection features. The platform is designed for developers who want to build event-driven applications without managing streaming infrastructure.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Event Streaming API REST API and Apache Kafka-based ingestion service that enables developers to collect real-time event data from any source with no limit on recording events; underpins Keen's event streaming platform for developers and technical teams.
- Persistent Storage Secure, reliable event data storage service using multi-layer AES encryption at rest and TLS encryption in transit; supports Privacy Shield and GDPR compliance requirements.
- Real-Time Analytics (Compute API) Query and compute service that runs analyses on stored event data, including count, count_unique, minimum, maximum, sum, average, median, percentile, select_unique, standard_deviation, multi-analysis, funnels, and extractions; usage-based pricing applies per compute operation.
- Embedded Visualizations (Data Viz Library) White-labeled presentation library for embedding in-app dashboards and interactive charts (area, bar, bubble, choropleth, donut, funnel, gauge, heatmap, line, metric, pie, table) directly into customer products.
Quantifiable outcome
- Saves months of development work building real-time analytics
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Keen
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Keen technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration21 records
Feature9 records
Keen partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- ChargifycoreAcquired by Chargify to bring event-based billing capabilities to its subscription management platform. The acquisition combined Chargify's billing expertise with Keen's event streaming infrastructure.
- Amazon Web Services (S3)coreNative integration allowing customers to stream enriched event data directly to their Amazon S3 buckets. Supports backups, routing to third parties via Lambda, and SQL-based analysis with Athena/Redshift.
- Apache KafkacoreBuilt on Apache Kafka for streaming infrastructure. Supports Kafka Inbound Cluster for producing events and Kafka Outbound Cluster for consuming enriched event streams.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Keen competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Mixpanel: Product analytics platform with event-based tracking, funnel/cohort analysis, and developer-friendly SDKs. Directly competes in Keen's product analytics and customer-facing metrics segments.
- Snowplow Analytics: Event-level data collection and analytics platform built on Kafka, with strong enterprise and data-team adoption. Comparable to Keen's Kafka-based streaming architecture and developer-first delivery model.
- Amplitude: Product analytics platform with event-based data model, funnel and retention analysis, and embedded dashboards. Overlaps with Keen's Real-Time Analytics Compute API and Embedded Visualizations for product analytics use cases.
- RudderStack: Customer Data Platform offering warehouse-native event collection and routing, with SDKs and API. Directly comparable to Keen's developer-first event pipeline offering, positioned as a Segment alternative.
- Segment (Twilio): Customer Data Platform with API-first event collection, SDKs across languages, and pipeline-to-destination streaming architecture. Closest direct peer to Keen's event collection + storage + analysis model; the dominant player in the category Keen targets.
- Heap (Contentsquare): Auto-captured event analytics platform with retroactive funnel analysis and embedded insights. Competes with Keen's auto-collection features and product analytics solution.
Broad incumbents
- Amazon Kinesis / AWS: Cloud-native event streaming and data analytics services from AWS, including Kinesis Data Streams, Firehose, and EventBridge. Hyperscaler incumbent that commoditizes infrastructure-level event streaming for many customers.
- Confluent: Commercial provider of managed Apache Kafka with broader streaming infrastructure platform. Competes at the infrastructure layer where Keen's Kafka-based architecture operates, but targets platform/data engineering teams rather than Keen's app-developer niche.
Emerging players
- Indicative: Customer analytics platform connecting event data to behavioral analysis, with direct warehouse connectivity. Adjacent competitor in the product/customer analytics segment where Keen also competes.
- PostHog: Open-source product analytics suite with event capture, funnels, and feature flags. Emerging alternative targeting developer-led PLG adoption similar to Keen's self-serve motion.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Keen social profiles
Digital presenceKeen compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance2 records
Keen financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Keen leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Keen funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds6 records
Investors20 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Keen M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Keen
What does Keen do?
Keen provides a fully managed, multi-tenant event streaming and embedded analytics platform built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra. Developers use its REST API and SDKs to collect real-time event data from any source, store it with multi-layer AES encryption, run queries and funnels via the Compute API, and embed white-labeled dashboards through the Data Viz Library. The platform eliminates the need to build and maintain custom streaming infrastructure for product analytics, customer-facing metrics, events-based billing, and IoT use cases.
Is Keen a public or private company?
Keen is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was Keen founded?
Keen was founded in 2003. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Keen based?
Keen is headquartered in San Antonio, United States, in the North America region.
How does Keen make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Subscription-based SaaS are the primary driver. The others are usage-based Compute.
Who are Keen's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Mixpanel, Snowplow Analytics, Amplitude, RudderStack, Segment (Twilio) and Heap (Contentsquare). Broad incumbents are Amazon Kinesis / AWS and Confluent. Emerging players are Indicative and PostHog.
Does Keen have an API?
Yes. Keen offers a REST API (v3.0) for event streaming, storage, querying, and analytics. Supports HTTP header and query string authentication, plus Kafka Producer/Consumer authentication via SASL_SSL/PLAIN. Rate limits: no limit for recording events, 200/minute for ad-hoc queries and extractions, 10/minute for updates and deletes. Official SDKs available for JavaScript, iOS, Swift, Android, Java, Ruby, Python, PHP, .NET, and Xamarin. Kafka streaming available via Apache Kafka integration. Developer documentation is at keen.io/docs/api.
What industry is Keen in?
Keen's product category is Event Streaming and Embedded Analytics. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEAIAD, Event Streaming & Pub/Sub Platforms, with a secondary code of HDABAAAF, Data & Analytics Platforms (Data Warehousing, Lakes, Streaming). Its NAICS code is 513210 and its SIC code is 7370.