Cloudera Strengthens Its AI Technology Hand With Verta Platform Acquisition

Verta’s staff will also join the data management company, significantly expanding Cloudera’s AI and GenAI development expertise.

Data management platform company Cloudera has acquired the Verta Operational AI Platform from Verta.ai in a move the cloud data platform provider said will deepen its AI technology portfolio and expertise with additional AI and machine learning talent and technology.

In addition to buying the Verta model management and operations platform, Cloudera said “the Verta team” will join Cloudera’s machine learning group, reporting to Chief Product Officer Dipto Chakravarty.

Cloudera, based in Santa Clara, Calif., did not close the value of the acquisition. A statement announcing the acquisition also did not say how many people from Verta, headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., would join Cloudera.

A Cloudera spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

The hybrid and multi-cloud Verta Operational AI Platform is used to accelerate GenAI application development, according to the Verta website. The technology, based on research conducted at MIT by Verta CEO Manasi Vartak and further developed with CTO Conrado Miranda, “addresses one of the biggest hurdles in AI deployments by enabling organizations to effectively build, operationalize, monitor, secure, and scale models” throughout an organization, according to a Cloudera statement announcing the acquisition.

“The future of data management is AI; they go hand-in-hand. Cloudera is acquiring Verta’s AI Operational platform to strengthen our team and accelerate our operational AI capabilities,” said Cloudera CEO Charles Sansbury in the statement. “We are moving quickly to provide our customers with the technologies they need to drive their data and AI initiatives, and we have no plans to slow down. This is the first of several strategic moves we expect to make as we extend our leadership in data and trusted enterprise AI.”

Verta’s technology simplifies the process of turning private datasets into custom retrieval-augmented generation applications, enabling any developer—no matter their level of machine learning expertise—to create and optimize business-ready large language models (LLMs), the companies said in the statement. These features—along with Verta’s GenAI Workbench, model catalog, and AI governance tools—will enhance Cloudera’s platform capabilities “as it continues to deliver on the promise of enterprise AI for its global customer base.”

“This acquisition isn’t just about growth; it’s about deepening our IP [intellectual property] and adding even more talent to better serve our customers with unmatched expertise and innovative solutions,” Cloudera CPO Chakravarty said in a blog post. “The Verta platform will expand Cloudera’s enterprise AI portfolio and meet the growing demand across our global user base so that we can accelerate innovation for our customers.”

Verta was founded in April 2018, according to the Crunchbase website, and was financially backed by Intel Capital, General Catalyst and Sweat Equity Ventures, among others. In November 2023 Verta launched the Verta GenAI Workbench to accelerate GenAI application development.