What PhoenixAI does

PhoenixAI (formerly CelerData) is a venture-backed analytical database company headquartered in Menlo Park, California, that builds an AI-native database on the open-source StarRocks project. The platform is engineered for real-time query workloads generated by autonomous AI agents and operational applications, using vectorized execution and columnar storage to deliver sub-second SQL latency at scale (documented at 573 billion+ rows in production and 10,000+ concurrent queries per second). PhoenixAI ingests streaming data from Apache Kafka, Flink, and Spark in under five seconds, queries Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake lakehouse tables in place, and exposes ANSI SQL via MySQL wire protocol, JDBC/ODBC, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) for AI agent connectivity.

The product is delivered as PhoenixAI Cloud (fully managed SaaS) or self-hosted Bring-Your-Own-Cloud (BYOC) on AWS, Azure, or GCP, with a 30-day free trial feeding a hybrid enterprise sales-led and product-led growth motion. Customers span crypto (Coinbase), social (Pinterest), travel (Expedia), martech (Demandbase), HR tech (Eightfold), process mining (Celonis), sports commerce (Fanatics, 6 PB migrated with 90% cost reduction), mobile gaming (AppLovin), and SEO/content (Conductor). The company is SOC 2 Type II certified, with database-native fine-grained access controls, row-level security, audit logging, and data masking aimed at regulated industries including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, telecom, logistics, retail, and public sector.

PhoenixAI monetizes via subscription-based pricing on both managed cloud and self-hosted deployments, with public pricing tiered by scale but specific prices undisclosed. In June 2026 the company closed an $80 million Series B led by Sky9 Capital with Atypical Ventures and Olive Technology Ventures, explicitly to fund AI agent database development, go-to-market expansion, and enhanced governance capabilities. Headcount is in the 51-100 range, and the corporate entity is PhoenixAI, Inc., a US-incorporated private company with no parent, no public ticker, and no M&A activity disclosed.

Name

PhoenixAI

Legal name

PhoenixAI, Inc.

Website

https://celerdata.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

PhoenixAI (formerly CelerData) is a venture-backed analytical database vendor that delivers sub-second SQL on live enterprise data for autonomous AI agents and real-time analytics. Built on open-source StarRocks, it serves enterprises across crypto, martech, HR tech, and sports commerce via managed cloud and BYOC deployments.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Real-Time Analytical Database Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Lakehouse Platforms (HDAEABAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

Query Engines & SQL Analytics Layers for Warehouses/Lakes (HDAEABAI), Data Warehouse/Lakehouse Performance Optimization & Cost Management (HDAEABAL), Data & Analytics Platforms (Data Warehousing, Lakes, Streaming) (HDABAAAF)

Keywords

• Real-time analytical database
• AI agent data infrastructure
• Cloud-native OLAP database
• Lakehouse analytics platform
• Streaming data ingestion

Headquarters

HQ city

Menlo Park

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. PhoenixAI Cloud: Fully managed cloud database service offered as SaaS subscription. Flexible plans for every scale with 30-day free trial available.
2. Self-Hosted Deployment: Self-hosted deployment option for enterprises preferring on-premises or BYOC deployment models.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

PhoenixAI builds and sells PhoenixAI Cloud, an AI-native analytical database platform purpose-built for agentic AI and real-time analytics workloads. The product delivers sub-second SQL queries on live enterprise data at 10K+ concurrency, ingests streaming data from Kafka, Flink, and Spark to be queryable in under 5 seconds, and queries Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake lakehouse formats in place. It is offered as a fully managed cloud service or as a self-hosted/BYOC deployment on AWS, Azure, or GCP, and is sold to enterprises running AI agents, customer-facing analytics, real-time dashboards, and lakehouse workloads.

Product overview

PhoenixAI offers a single unified product — PhoenixAI Cloud — an AI-native analytical database purpose-built for agentic AI workloads. The product is positioned as foundational infrastructure for AI agents, providing sub-second SQL access to live enterprise data with high concurrency. PhoenixAI Cloud connects to existing data stacks including streaming sources (Kafka, Flink, Spark), lakehouse formats (Iceberg, Delta Lake), and cloud storage (S3, GCS, ADLS). The company targets use cases in AI and Agents, Real-Time Analytics, Customer-Facing Analytics, and Lakehouse Analytics across industries including Finance, Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, and Logistics.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• PhoenixAI Cloud PhoenixAI Cloud is a fully managed cloud-native analytical database for AI agent and real-time analytics workloads. It delivers sub-second SQL query latency on live enterprise data with sustained 10K+ concurrent query throughput, ingests streaming events from Kafka, Flink, and Spark making them queryable in under 5 seconds, queries Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake lakehouse tables in place, and is available as a fully managed cloud service or self-hosted Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) deployment on AWS, Azure, or GCP with data staying in the customer's perimeter. SOC 2 Type II certified with row-level security, fine-grained access controls, audit logging, and data masking.

Quantifiable outcome

• Sub-second analytical query latency on 573B+ rows (Coinbase case)
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments12 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration13 records

AI capability2 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core cloud provider, integration partner and core integration.

• AWS (Amazon Web Services)core cloud providerTechnology or IntegrationOfficial cloud provider partner. PhoenixAI supports BYOC deployment on AWS with data staying in customer's own AWS perimeter.
• Microsoft Azurecore cloud providerTechnology or IntegrationOfficial cloud provider partner. PhoenixAI supports BYOC deployment on Azure with data staying in customer's own Azure perimeter.
• Google Cloud (GCP)core cloud providerTechnology or IntegrationOfficial cloud provider partner. PhoenixAI supports BYOC deployment on GCP with data staying in customer's own GCS perimeter.
• Confluentintegration partnerTechnology or IntegrationTechnology integration partner for Apache Kafka streaming. PhoenixAI ingests streaming data from Kafka for real-time queryable analytics.
• Databricksintegration partnerTechnology or IntegrationListed partner on website. Competitive comparison available between PhoenixAI and Databricks.
• Apache Icebergcore integrationTechnology or IntegrationPhoenixAI supports querying Apache Iceberg tables at sub-second speed, with optimizer handling novel joins automatically.
• Delta Lakecore integrationTechnology or IntegrationPhoenixAI supports querying Delta Lake at sub-second speed, enabling lakehouse analytics without data movement.
• Kafkacore integrationTechnology or IntegrationPhoenixAI ingests streaming data directly from Kafka, making it queryable in under one second. Streaming updates become queryable within seconds.
• Flinkintegration partnerTechnology or IntegrationPhoenixAI connects to Flink for real-time data processing integration.
• Sparkintegration partnerTechnology or IntegrationPhoenixAI connects to Spark for data processing and ETL integration.
• dbtintegration partnerTechnology or IntegrationPhoenixAI integrates with dbt for data transformation workflows.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• ClickHouse: ClickHouse (open-source columnar OLAP database and ClickHouse Cloud) is PhoenixAI's most directly comparable competitor. PhoenixAI publishes explicit comparison content against ClickHouse, especially around AI agent workloads and managed governance - ClickHouse was Demandbase's prior warehouse before the switch.
• StarRocks (open-source project): StarRocks is the open-source MPP analytical database project on which PhoenixAI is built and which PhoenixAI commercially extends. Any user can adopt StarRocks directly, making the project itself a reference for the technology PhoenixAI packages - and a constant baseline against which PhoenixAI's enterprise differentiation (SOC 2, BYOC, support) must justify its pricing.
• SingleStore: SingleStore (formerly MemSQL) is a distributed SQL database combining transactional and real-time analytical workloads with sub-second latency and hybrid cloud/self-hosted deployment. It is directly comparable to PhoenixAI on real-time analytical SQL against operational data, with similar enterprise positioning.
• Firebolt: Firebolt is a cloud data warehouse engineered for sub-second analytical queries at high concurrency, with decoupled storage and compute on S3. It targets the same real-time OLAP workload for AI applications that PhoenixAI markets, competing head-to-head for performance-sensitive AI/agent use cases.

Broad incumbents

• Databricks: Databricks is a broader incumbent lakehouse and data + AI platform. PhoenixAI publishes explicit vs.-Databricks comparison content, and both target analytics on Apache Iceberg/Delta Lake. Databricks is also listed as a PhoenixAI integration/technology partner - they overlap on lakehouse SQL analytics from different architectural starting points.
• Snowflake: Snowflake is the leading cloud data warehouse and a broader incumbent in real-time and AI analytics. PhoenixAI's website features a direct vs.-Snowflake comparison page positioning itself as a real-time alternative; Eightfold explicitly migrated from Redshift (a Snowflake competitor) to PhoenixAI for AI agent workloads.

Emerging players

• Apache Druid: Apache Druid is an open-source real-time analytics database optimized for fast OLAP queries on high-velocity streaming data. It overlaps with PhoenixAI's streaming ingestion and real-time query story (Kafka -> queryable in seconds), making it a relevant open-source alternative for real-time OLAP workloads.
• Apache Pinot: Apache Pinot is an open-source real-time distributed OLAP datastore used for user-facing analytics with low-latency queries. It is comparable to PhoenixAI's customer-facing analytics use case and high-concurrency positioning, often deployed in LinkedIn/Uber-style environments.
• Motherduck (DuckDB): Motherduck is the managed cloud service built on DuckDB, a high-performance in-process analytical SQL engine. It overlaps with PhoenixAI in fast SQL analytics on modern data formats, especially for analytics workloads where DuckDB's columnar engine and Motherduck's serverless model are an alternative to a dedicated real-time warehouse.

Others

• Confluent (ksqlDB): Confluent is the commercial provider of Apache Kafka and offers ksqlDB for stream-processing SQL on Kafka topics. PhoenixAI lists Confluent as a strategic technology/integration partner and ingests Kafka streams directly. Confluent/ksqlDB is an ecosystem alternative for stream SQL rather than a direct warehouse competitor, but it overlaps on the real-time query path.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors4 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 PhoenixAI