Kx
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1993
- HeadquartersNewry, United Kingdom
- Headcount1,001–5,000
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
Kx firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Kx
- Legal name
- KX Software Limited
- Website
- https://kx.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1993
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1,001–5,000 employees
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Kx industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Time-series database and real-time analytics platform
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518210)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Time-Series Databases (HDAEAAAF)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Multi-Model Databases (HDAEAAAL), Dashboarding & KPI/Performance Management (HDAEAMAF), Real-Time Market Data Feeds & Terminals (FSAFAIAA), Alternative Data & Data Science Analytics (FSACAGAI)
Keywords
Where Kx is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Newry
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices6 records
Markets served
Kx business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Software Licenses and Subscriptions: Revenue from licensing kdb+, KDB-X, KDB.AI, kdb Insights, and related software products on subscription basis with various usage metrics (cores, RAM, users).
- Enterprise Software Licenses: Enterprise licensing of kdb Insights Enterprise with free trial starting point, convertible to paid subscription.
- Professional Services: Implementation, training, and consulting services for enterprise deployments.
- OEM Licensing: OEM partners license KX software embedded in their applications with fees based on order forms.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | kdb Insights Enterprise - 7-day free trial |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Product trial options including kdb+, Insights SDK, Insights Enterprise, and KDB.AI |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise licensing with usage-based metrics |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels9 records
Kx product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Kx develops and sells a high-performance time-series database and analytics platform built on kdb+ and the newer KDB-X engine, enabling sub-millisecond real-time processing, vector search, and GPU-accelerated AI workloads. The portfolio targets capital markets trading, surveillance, and quantitative research, complemented by managed market data (OneTick), cloud-native analytics (kdb Insights), and industry solutions for defense, IoT, and other data-intensive sectors.
Product overview
KX offers a comprehensive portfolio of time-series analytics and AI products built on the world's fastest kdb+ database. The core offering consists of kdb+ (the foundational time-series database), KDB-X (next-generation unified compute engine combining time-series, vector search, and GPU compute), and kdb Insights (cloud-native analytics platform). These are complemented by specialized modules including KDB.AI (vector database for AI/analytics), OneTick Cloud and OneTick Market Data (managed market data), KX Surveillance and OneTick Trade Surveillance (compliance solutions), KX Dashboards (visualization), KX Delta Platform and KX Sensors (defense and IoT solutions), PyKX (Python integration), KX Feedhandlers (data connectivity), and KX Accelerators (development tools). The platform is AI-ready, supporting GPU acceleration via NVIDIA, multimodal data processing, and autonomous agent workflows for capital markets applications.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- kdb+: World's fastest time-series database and in-memory compute engine for real-time and historical data.
- kdb Insights
- KDB-X
- KDB.AI
- OneTick
- PyKX
- KX Dashboards
- KX Surveillance
- KX Delta Platform
- KX Sensors
- OneTick Cloud
Quantifiable outcome
- 100X faster and 1/10th the cost for time-series data than stacks built on Snowflake, Databricks, and Dataiku
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Kx
Customer profileNamed customers15 records
Segments6 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Kx technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration11 records
AI capability12 records
Feature6 records
Kx partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- WaveMakercorePartnership to develop agentic AI trading workflow environments for front-office operations. KX technology integrated into WaveMaker's agentic AI application generation system for capital markets.
- NVIDIAcoreNVIDIA partnership for GPU-accelerated analytics and AI solutions. KDB-X GPU Acceleration leverages NVIDIA GPUs for enhanced time-series and AI workloads. Partnership includes KX-NVIDIA AIQ Blueprint for agentic financial research.
- ATFXcoreStrategic data infrastructure collaboration integrating KX's kdb+, KDB-X platform, and AI-powered tools into ATFX's trading operations. Enables real-time analytics, automated workflows, and improved client reporting capabilities for the global FX and CFDs broker serving hundreds of tradable instruments.
- AWScoreAWS Marketplace partnership for kdb Insights Portfolio deployment. Enables rapid deployment of time-series analytics on AWS cloud with seamless integration to Lambda, S3, and Redshift services.
- Google CloudcoreGoogle Cloud Marketplace partnership for KDB Insights SDK and Insights Enterprise. Provides deployment options on GCP with hybrid environment support and AI-enhanced analytics capabilities.
- Microsoft AzurecoreAzure Marketplace partnership for kdb Insights Platform as managed app. Enables rapid, reliable time-series analytics with Azure ecosystem agility and scalability.
- First DerivativeminorFirst Derivative (now part of EPAM) provides implementation and consulting services for KX solutions. Northern Ireland-based fintech company active in Singapore market.
- Invest Northern IrelandminorInvest Northern Ireland promotes KX and other Northern Ireland tech companies as partners for Singapore businesses under UK-Singapore trade agreements.
- KPMGminorConsulting partnership for financial services implementations.
Scale indicators9 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Kx competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database explicitly benchmarked by Kx. Competes head-to-head with kdb+/KDB-X on time-series and real-time analytics workloads across capital markets and adjacent verticals.
- Timescale (TigerData): PostgreSQL-based time-series database and a direct competitor highlighted in Kx's own TSBS benchmarking. Targets the same real-time analytics and IoT use cases with a strong open-source community.
- QuestDB: Open-source time-series database purpose-built for high-performance financial and IoT data ingestion. Directly compared to KDB-X in Kx's published benchmarks as a fast-growing open-source alternative.
- InfluxDB: Time-series database widely deployed for IoT and operational monitoring. Competes with kdb+ and KX Sensors for streaming and sensor workloads across industrial and enterprise customers.
- OneMarketData: Provider of normalized tick history and market data, now a wholly-owned Kx subsidiary post-September 2025 acquisition. Most directly comparable in market-data and surveillance functionality.
Broad incumbents
- MongoDB: General-purpose NoSQL database that has added native time-series collections. Offers broader developer reach than Kx and overlaps in analytics use cases, though less specialized for capital markets latency.
- Snowflake: Cloud data warehouse with an existing partnership with KX and growing native time-series and vector capabilities. Represents both a distribution channel and a structural competitive threat to Kx's analytics layer.
- Databricks: Unified analytics and lakehouse platform with an existing KX integration. Competes with Kx for high-end analytics workloads while also serving as a complementary compute layer for KDB-X deployments.
- LSEG (Refinitiv): Global market-data and analytics incumbent and KX data partner. Overlaps in real-time market data feeds and capital markets analytics but is far broader in scope across asset classes and reference data.
Emerging players
- Pinecone: Managed vector database focused on AI/RAG workloads, the same category KDB.AI targets. While not focused on financial time-series, it represents a competitive vector-database alternative for enterprise AI customers.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Kx social profiles
Digital presenceKx compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance5 records
Kx financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Kx leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles10 records
Kx subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries3 records
Kx funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Kx M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Kx
What does Kx do?
Kx develops and sells a high-performance time-series database and analytics platform built on kdb+ and the newer KDB-X engine, enabling sub-millisecond real-time processing, vector search, and GPU-accelerated AI workloads. The portfolio targets capital markets trading, surveillance, and quantitative research, complemented by managed market data (OneTick), cloud-native analytics (kdb Insights), and industry solutions for defense, IoT, and other data-intensive sectors.
Is Kx a public or private company?
Kx is a private company. It is classified as private equity controlled and is currently operating.
When was Kx founded?
Kx was founded in 1993. It employs 1,001 to 5,000 people.
Where is Kx based?
Kx is headquartered in Newry, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does Kx make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Software Licenses and Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are enterprise Software Licenses, professional Services and OEM Licensing.
Who are Kx's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ClickHouse, Timescale (TigerData), QuestDB, InfluxDB and OneMarketData. Broad incumbents are MongoDB, Snowflake, Databricks and LSEG (Refinitiv). Pinecone is listed as an emerging player.
Does Kx have an API?
Yes. KX offers extensive API access through multiple interfaces: PyKX provides Python native interface for kdb+; KDB-X supports REST API and SQL queries; kdb Insights SDK supports object storage and REST; KDB.AI offers Python and REST programming interfaces. The platform supports q language, SQL, and Python for programming. A KDB-X MCP server is available for real-time market intelligence integration with AI agents. Developer documentation is at code.kx.com.
What industry is Kx in?
Kx's product category is Time-series database and real-time analytics platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEAAAF, Time-Series Databases, with a secondary code of HDAEAAAL, Multi-Model Databases. Its NAICS code is 518210 and its SIC code is 7370.