Omni
Omni is a San Francisco-based business intelligence platform founded in 2022 by three alumni of Looker—Colin Zima (CEO), Jamie Davidson, and Chris Merrick—who left after Google's 2020 acquisition of the company.
Profile
A business intelligence platform that lets teams query data with SQL, AI, or visual builders, auto-building governed metrics that entire organizations can trust and reuse.
Omni is a San Francisco-based business intelligence platform founded in 2022 by three alumni of Looker—Colin Zima (CEO), Jamie Davidson, and Chris Merrick—who left after Google's 2020 acquisition of the company. The founders identified a persistent trade-off in data teams: speed versus governance. Omni's core product addresses this by auto-building a data model as users query, surfacing metrics through a semantic layer that balances ad-hoc self-service analytics with governed, shared definitions. The platform supports SQL, natural language, spreadsheet formulas, and visual query builders, integrating with Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, and other cloud data warehouses.
Since launch, Omni has grown to over 200 customer companies including BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, Guitar Center, dbt Labs, Cribl, BambooHR, and Perplexity. The company reported nearly $10 million ARR at the time of its March 2025 Series B and projected $30 million by year-end. In October 2025, Omni acquired Explo, a competing embedded analytics platform, consolidating its position in both internal and customer-facing analytics. The acquisition gives Omni a faster path to embedded analytics dominance; Explo's founders committed to a 12-month transition period during which existing Explo customers retain platform access. By April 2026, Omni reached unicorn status with its Series C round of $120 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, led by ICONIQ Capital. Valuation more than doubled from the March 2025 round ($650 million), driven by 4x year-over-year revenue growth and ARR expansion from $10 million to approximately $30 million. The company operates distributed teams across six regional hubs: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Philadelphia, Toronto, Dublin, and Sydney, with headcount around 200 as of early 2025, projected to grow to 150 by year-end 2025 following Series B. Omni competes with Looker, Tableau, and Metabase but differentiates on governance-plus-speed through its semantic layer and AI-first query interface. BuzzFeed's migration from Looker in under three months reduced analytics one-off requests by 80% and consolidated 2,000 dashboards to 400.
Who buys this
- Mid-market and enterprise SaaS companies consolidating legacy BI tools
- Media and publishing companies needing fast, self-serve analytics (BuzzFeed, Condé Nast)
- Companies building AI-powered analytics and data products
- Organizations with cloud data warehouses (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery) seeking semantic layer governance
- Financial services and retail companies requiring both self-service and governed reporting
Publicly disclosed clients
- BuzzFeed
- Condé Nast
- Guitar Center
- dbt Labs
- Cribl
- BambooHR
- Perplexity
Strengths and what to watch
Strengths
- Founded and led by ex-Looker engineers who understand enterprise BI governance; 4x year-over-year revenue growth and unicorn valuation in four years shows market fit
- Embedded analytics acquisition of Explo (October 2025) combines internal and customer-facing use cases in one platform, addressing a market need competitors split across products
- Semantic layer with natural language interface allows non-technical users to run AI queries against governed metrics, reducing analyst toil and democratizing data access
Watch for
- Explo acquisition integration: Omni committed to running Explo as a subsidiary for 12 months; migration execution risk and customer churn during consolidation will shape competitive positioning
- Customer concentration and land-and-expand risk: 200+ customers is strong, but media/tech skew (BuzzFeed, Condé Nast) and SaaS focus may leave gaps in retail, finance, manufacturing segments
- Secular shift to AI-first querying: success depends on whether natural language queries become reliable enough for enterprise production use; user adoption will signal whether AI is additive or distraction
Recent moves
Key Information
- Industry
- BI Platforms
- Founded
- 2022
- Headquarters
- San Francisco
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Omni?
Omni is a business intelligence platform founded in 2022 by ex-Looker engineers. It enables teams to query data using SQL, natural language, spreadsheet formulas, or visual builders. The platform automatically builds governed metrics through a semantic layer, balancing self-service analytics with shared data definitions across organizations.
Who founded Omni?
Omni was founded in 2022 by Colin Zima (CEO), Jamie Davidson, and Chris Merrick—former Looker engineers. After Google acquired Looker in 2020, they identified a gap between speed and governance. Omni was built to solve this trade-off through automated metric building and semantic layer governance.
What are Omni's main features?
Omni supports multiple query methods: SQL, natural language AI, spreadsheet formulas, and visual builders. Its semantic layer auto-builds governed metrics that organizations can share and reuse. The platform integrates with Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, and other cloud data warehouses, enabling both self-service and governed analytics.
Which companies use Omni?
Notable Omni customers include BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, Guitar Center, dbt Labs, Cribl, BambooHR, and Perplexity. The platform serves 200+ customer companies across media, publishing, SaaS, financial services, and retail. BuzzFeed's migration from Looker reduced ad-hoc requests by 80% and consolidated 2,000 dashboards to 400.
How does Omni compare to Looker and Tableau?
Omni competes with Looker, Tableau, and Metabase but differentiates through speed plus governance via its semantic layer and AI-first query interface. Founded by ex-Looker engineers, Omni combines self-service analytics with governed shared metrics. Recent acquisition of embedded analytics platform Explo extends its customer-facing analytics capabilities.
How has Omni grown?
Omni reached unicorn status in April 2026 with a $120 million Series C round at $1.5 billion valuation. The company demonstrated 4x year-over-year revenue growth, expanding ARR from $10 million at Series B (March 2025) to approximately $30 million. Series C was led by ICONIQ Capital.
How Omni compares
Direct head-to-head against 3 competitors. Picked by 7wData.
Omni
- Positioning
- A business intelligence platform that lets teams query data with SQL, AI, or visual builders, auto-building governed metrics that entire organizations can trust and reuse.
- Customer segments
- Mid-market and enterprise SaaS companies consolidating legacy BI tools
- Strengths
- Founded and led by ex-Looker engineers who understand enterprise BI governance; 4x year-over-year revenue growth and unicorn valuation in four years shows market fit
- Watch for
- Explo acquisition integration: Omni committed to running Explo as a subsidiary for 12 months; migration execution risk and customer churn during consolidation will shape competitive positioning
- Recent moves
- Omni Raises Series C at $1.5B Valuation, becoming a unicorn with $120M led by ICONIQ Capital
Google Looker
- Positioning
- Enterprise BI platform within Google Cloud, built on LookML semantic layer, repositioned as agentic BI at Cloud Next 26.
- Customer segments
- Large enterprise Google Cloud customers; data engineering teams owning centralized governed semantic models at scale.
- Strengths
- LookML semantic layer is the original enterprise governed metrics standard; Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in Analytics and BI 2025.
- Watch for
- Customers cite LookML complexity and high engineering dependency; G2 reviews flag steep learning curve limiting non-technical self-service adoption.
- Recent moves
- Google Cloud Next 26, April 2026: launched Looker BI Agents triggering downstream business actions via semantic layer.
Sigma Computing
- Positioning
- Spreadsheet-interface cloud BI for enterprise data teams, pivoting to agentic analytics with no-code warehouse-native AI agents.
- Customer segments
- Enterprise analysts at financial services, retail, and cloud-native SaaS companies preferring spreadsheet-style data exploration.
- Strengths
- Spreadsheet UX running live warehouse queries without data extracts; $200M ARR and 2,000 customers reached by April 2026.
- Watch for
- Series E strategic investors Databricks Ventures, ServiceNow Ventures, and Workday Ventures raise product-neutrality concerns for independent buyers.
- Recent moves
- Series E $80M raised May 2026 at $3B valuation, backed by Databricks Ventures, ServiceNow Ventures, and Workday Ventures.
Metabase
- Positioning
- Open-source self-serve BI with hosted cloud and embedded options; targets teams wanting analytics without dedicated BI engineers.
- Customer segments
- Startups, SMBs, and developer-led teams wanting fast self-serve analytics at low cost without governance overhead.
- Strengths
- Open-source deployment model drives bottom-up adoption in developer-led organizations; zero license cost on self-hosted tier.
- Watch for
- No new funding since Series B, May 2021; enterprise support capacity and roadmap velocity are documented buyer concerns.
- Recent moves
- Embedded Analytics SDK launched March 31, 2026; AI features added across all plans including the open-source tier.
Sources
- omni.co — Product overview, features (AI chat, dashboards, embedded analytics, semantic layer), customer logos, integrations
- omni.co — Founder names (Colin Zima, Jamie Davidson, Chris Merrick), founding story, mission, regional hubs, investor backing
- omni.co — Series C $120M at $1.5B valuation, April 2026, ICONIQ lead, investor participation, $30M employee tender offer
- techcrunch.com — Series B $69M funding, $650M valuation March 2025, 200+ customers, ~$10M ARR, 85 employees, growth projections
- omni.co — Named customers: BuzzFeed, Guitar Center, BambooHR, Caraway, Photoroom, Feeld, Cribl, Brevo, Heidi AI
- omni.co — BuzzFeed migration from Looker in under 3 months, 80% faster ad-hoc reporting, 2000 to 400 dashboard consolidation
- www.businesswire.com — Explo acquisition October 2025, 12-month transition period, Explo founders Andrew Chen and Gary Lin continuing
- www.glassdoor.com — Employee culture, growth opportunities, startup environment challenges, positive impact feedback