Astronomer (the company behind Astro, a leading unified DataOps platform powered by Apache Airflow) announced it has secured $93 million in Series D funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, along with Salesforce Ventures and existing investors including Insight, Meritech, and Venrock, with Bosch Ventures seeking to participate.
The funding comes during a time of tremendous momentum for Astronomer and Airflow, the open-source framework and de facto standard for data orchestration that sits at the core of Astronomer’s offerings. And in the past year, Astro expansion beyond data orchestration included data observability/lineage, data quality, integrated dbt workflows, cost optimization and other capabilities as Astronomer continues to invest in Astro as the leading unified DataOps platform.
Last fiscal year Astronomer saw 150%+ YoY Astro ARR growth; improved operational efficiency, with a two year path to profitability; a 130% Net Revenue Retention; and 90%+ product utilization with customers.
And Airflow increased in popularity alongside the rise of AI and MLOps.
Airflow is also used by more than 80K organizations and was downloaded over 324 million times in 2024. And Astronomer’s engineering efforts are critical to driving Airflow releases, including the recent general availability of Airflow 3.0 – the most significant release in project history. This release makes Airflow easier to use, with enhanced security and the ability to run anywhere, all while introducing an architecture that is tailor-made to support production AI at scale.
What the funding will be used for: Astronomer will use the funding round to expedite research and development, and to strategically expand the company’s international presence.
KEY QUOTES:
“While this is just one step in Astronomer’s journey to build a durable, lasting software company, we’re thrilled to have one of our earliest investors, Bain, leading the round. All of our investors are committed to Astronomer’s long-term vision because of our recent momentum, the massive market demand for the platform we’re building, and the macro tailwinds that support our vision. Whether it’s getting enterprise AI into production at scale, maximizing data platform value through cost optimization, or just driving more value from data in general–everything we do at Astronomer is at the heart of boardroom conversations across the world.”
Andy Byron, CEO, Astronomer
“We invested in Astronomer in 2019 with a simple bet: Airflow would become the standard for data orchestration. Today, it runs at over 80,000 companies and drives 30 million downloads a month. We backed Astronomer because they’re not only riding that wave; they’re building the enterprise control plane on top of it. As AI raises the stakes for reliable, scalable data infrastructure, we’re doubling down on our investment. Orchestration is just the start. The team at Astronomer are poised to unify the entire DataOps stack.”
Enrique Salem, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures
“We have been fortunate enough to back the Astronomer team since 2021 and witnessed impressive execution since Andy joined the team in 2023. By using data orchestration as an entry point into the broader DataOps ecosystem, Astronomer is uniquely positioned to consolidate critical functions—from observability and cost management to governance and quality. We believe Astronomer is on track to become the control plane for the modern data stack, and a category-defining company in data infrastructure.”
Paul Drews, Managing Partner of Salesforce Ventures
“For years, Bosch has continued to scale its Airflow usage as a data orchestration framework driving an increasing number of business-critical projects. The success we saw leveraging Airflow internally was a validating factor in our decision to back Astronomer.”
Dr. Ingo Ramesohl, Managing Director Bosch Ventures
