What Okera does

Okera is a San Francisco-based data authorization company founded in 2016 that builds enterprise software for fine-grained access control and governance over data assets, with a particular focus on data lake and analytics environments. The company sits in the data security and governance layer of the modern data stack, addressing the enterprise problem of unlocking data for analytics and downstream consumption while enforcing authorization, privacy, and compliance policies at a granular level. Its headcount of 51-100 employees and a leadership bench comprising a CEO (Nong Li), an Executive Chairman (Timothy Eades), a VP of Engineering, a VP of Worldwide Sales, a VP of Global Alliances & Partner Channels, and a Principal Solutions Architect indicate a mature enterprise go-to-market organization that combines direct sales with channel and pre-sales technical support.

Okera has raised approximately $29.6 million across three funding rounds from 2016 through 2020, with investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Felicis, Menlo Ventures, ClearSky, Capital One Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Emergent Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Cyber Mentor Fund. The repeated participation of Capital One Ventures across the seed and Series A rounds signals strategic alignment with regulated, data-intensive industries such as financial services. The progression from a $2.6M seed (2016) to a $12M Series A (2018) and a $15M Series A2 (2020) shows a deliberate, capital-efficient scaling cadence rather than aggressive hyper-funding.

The business model follows a B2B enterprise SaaS pattern: direct sales supported by a partner and alliances channel, with technical pre-sales delivered by solutions architects. Pricing is not publicly disclosed in the available sources. Customer segmentation is enterprise-led given the sales leadership structure and investor profile, though specific customer logos, contract values, and segment mix are not disclosed in the input data, which limits granular revenue and concentration analysis.

Name

Okera

Legal name

Databricks Inc.

Website

https://okera.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Okera is a San Francisco-based data authorization company founded in 2016 that provides enterprise software for fine-grained access control and governance over data lake and analytics environments, serving data-intensive organizations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Data Governance & Authorization Software

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518210)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Privileged Access to Data & Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) (HDADAFAE)

akta.pro secondary industry

Privileged Access Management (PAM) (HDADAAAC)

Keywords

• Data authorization
• Data access control
• Data governance platform
• Data security software
• Policy-based access management

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Core offering

Okera is a data authorization company that provides a platform for centralized, fine-grained data access control and policy enforcement across enterprise data estates. Its offering focuses on enabling organizations to govern who can access which data, under what conditions, across cloud and on-premises environments.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Lakebase: Serverless Postgres database integrated with the lakehouse, built for the AI era.
• Genie
• Agent Bricks
• Lakehouse

Products and services

• Okera Data Authorization Platform

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves3 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Immuta: Immuta is the leading independent data access governance platform, offering attribute-based access control, data masking, and policy enforcement across cloud data warehouses and lakes. It is the most direct competitor to Okera in fine-grained data authorization, and its 2024 acquisition of Privacera makes it the dominant third-party alternative.
• Privacera (now part of Immuta): Privacera was a direct Okera competitor focused on data access governance and security for cloud analytics, with strong roots in the Apache Ranger ecosystem. Its 2024 combination with Immuta creates the leading independent platform competing with Okera.

Broad incumbents

• Databricks (Unity Catalog): Databricks is the leading cloud data lakehouse platform; its Unity Catalog provides native data access control, lineage, and governance. As a broad incumbent, it competes with Okera by offering integrated governance that can displace third-party authorization layers.
• Snowflake (Horizon Catalog): Snowflake is a leading cloud data warehouse whose Horizon Catalog adds native governance, access control, and data lineage. Like Databricks, it embeds capabilities that historically required third-party authorization tooling like Okera.
• Collibra: Collibra is an enterprise data intelligence and governance platform spanning data catalog, lineage, and access governance. It is a broader incumbent competing for the same data governance budget that Okera targets, though with a heavier catalog-centric positioning.
• OneTrust: OneTrust is a large privacy, security, and data governance platform that includes data discovery, consent management, and access governance. It addresses similar buyer needs (privacy and compliance-driven data control) from a different starting point than Okera.
• AWS Lake Formation: AWS Lake Formation is the native data lake governance and access control service within the AWS ecosystem, offering centralized authorization for S3-based data lakes. It competes with Okera inside AWS deployments where customers prefer platform-native tooling.

Emerging players

• Alation: Alation is a leading data catalog platform that has been expanding into governance and access policy use cases. It overlaps with Okera at the data discovery and governance layer rather than the enforcement layer.
• Securiti.ai: Securiti is a unified data security and privacy platform combining data discovery, consent, access governance, and compliance automation. It is an emerging player with partial overlap with Okera in data access and privacy-driven authorization.

Others

• Apache Ranger: Apache Ranger is the most widely deployed open-source framework for Hadoop/data lake authorization, providing centralized policy administration and auditing. It is the open-source baseline against which Okera competes on enterprise features, scalability, and cloud-native support.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/okerainc
• Facebookfacebook.com/okerainc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/okerainc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors9 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Okera