Datadog announced its acquisition of Metaplane on Wednesday since the AI-powered data observability startup helps the company expand its capabilities in this growing market. The financial terms of the business acquisition remain undisclosed. The newly acquired Metaplane functions as “Metaplane by Datadog” to maintain its existing client base while Datadog improves its data observability solutions through product releases.
According to Datadog VP Michael Whetten “Observability represents a vital requirement for organizations operating with complex business-critical workflows because AI applications continue to multiply.” Datadog seeks to establish dependable AI systems through its mission to integrate observability across both applications and data platforms.
Metaplane emerged from 2020 when MIT graduate Kevin Hu together with former HubSpot engineer Peter Casinelli and former Appcues developer Guru Mahendran founded the company. Metaplane began its journey by focusing on customer success analytics for churn prevention before shifting its direction during the pandemic and joining Y Combinator to create AI-driven data monitoring tools. The company developed AI-powered data monitoring tools after it pivoted its business approach during the pandemic while participating in Y Combinator. Metaplane’s technology employs anomaly detection models trained on historical metadata to monitor data warehouses and establish data lineages while sending alerts through Slack or PagerDuty. Through user feedback the system develops its ability to improve alert precision as it advances.
Metaplane maintained its Boston location while securing $22.2 million in funding from Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator and Flybridge Capital Partners alongside Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch and HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah and employing about 10 people during January 2023. The acquisition by Datadog will enable our team to deliver data observability to a wider range of companies while connecting data and software teams together according to Hu.
Datadog made its second acquisition of 2025 by purchasing Quickwit in January 2025 which provides an open-source cloud-native log search engine. The strategic acquisition supports Datadog’s plans to expand in the data observability market which continues to grow rapidly as it reached $2.14 billion in 2023 and will increase at 12.2% annually until 2030 according to Grand View Research. Datadog competes intensely with other companies including Monte Carlo and Cribl together with Manta and Coralogix.
Datadog’s recent strong profit announcement did not match analyst predictions for 2025 revenue targets because it demonstrates why acquisitions and internal developments such as data job and stream monitoring are essential to separate its offerings from competitors in this competitive market.
