Fivetran Acquires Tobiko to Bring Order to Enterprise Data Chaos

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When Fivetran acquired Census earlier this year, it marked a turning point in the company’s evolution. Known primarily for its automated data pipelines, Fivetran extended into reverse ETL, enabling companies to send warehouse data back into operational systems. The move reflected a broader ambition to unify the fragmented layers of the modern data stack.

Building on that momentum, Fivetran is now turning its attention to one of the most complex challenges enterprise data teams face: building transformation workflows that are both reliable and fully auditable. With its acquisition of Tobiko Data, the company aims to gain a transformation engine built for semantic awareness, version control, and compliance-grade traceability. The goal is to make preparing data for analytics and AI less complex and more dependable. 

CEO George Fraser says the pressure on enterprise teams is growing fast. “Our customers are under pressure to deliver trusted data faster, across more teams and into more environments,” he said. “With Tobiko Data, we’re expanding our transformation capabilities to meet that demand and doing it with an open foundation that supports transparency, innovation, and interoperability.”

Back in 2022, a small team of engineers started Tobiko after running into the same transformation headaches at companies like Airbnb and Netflix. Pipelines kept breaking. Fixes felt like duct tape. They wanted a better system. Something that is more stable, less tedious, and easier for teams to trust.

What does Tobiko bring to the table for Fivetran? For one, a different way of thinking about transformation. Instead of treating it as a static layer of SQL scripts, Tobiko’s approach is more dynamic and model-driven. Its core engine, SQLMesh, helps teams understand how different parts of their data pipelines relate to each other, making it easier to track changes, isolate issues, and avoid breaking things in production.

That flexibility makes the system easier to manage, according to Fivetran. Teams can test changes without risking downstream issues, and the added visibility helps keep data, engineering, and analytics groups on the same page.

For Tobiko, the Fivetran deal opens the door to broader adoption without abandoning its open source roots. Fivetran’s managed platform and enterprise presence give SQLMesh and SQLGlot a bigger stage, while still allowing the core projects to stay aligned with the needs of the engineering community. 

Tyson Mao, Tobiko’s co-founder, sees the partnership as a way to amplify what the team started. “We built Tobiko to make data transformation more collaborative, transparent, and predictable,” Mao said. “By joining forces with Fivetran, we can scale these capabilities and help more teams turn transformation into a strategic advantage.”

Fivetran co-founder and CEO George Fraser

That same goal aligns closely with how Fivetran has been thinking about the future of enterprise data tooling. In a July interview with BigDATAWire, CEO George Fraser emphasized that most companies do not need to rebuild their stack to succeed with AI. 

What they need is simpler, more reliable tooling that fits into what they already use. By bringing Tobiko’s transformation engine into its managed platform, Fivetran is putting that idea into practice. It is offering a more integrated way to get data ready for AI without adding more complexity.

Tobiko’s early traction came not just from open source buzz, but from real-world usage. Teams at companies like Harness, Textio, Dreamhaven, Pipe, and Zitcha began using SQLMesh to cut down breakages and streamline updates between production and analytics. The feedback loop got tighter and the workflows more stable. That kind of adoption helped Tobiko prove that it wasn’t just solving edge cases, but it was tackling a core problem teams everywhere were wrestling with.

While SQLMesh led the charge, it wasn’t doing it alone. Behind the scenes, Tobiko’s open-source SQL parser and transpiler, SQLGlot, became a key part of the stack. It allowed teams to port code more easily and make their transformation logic work across platforms. 

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To support larger teams with tougher governance and collaboration needs, Tobiko also launched a commercial product called Tobiko Cloud. It builds on the open foundation but adds enterprise features like access controls, audit trails, and more managed deployment options. 

The Tobiko acquisition rounds out Fivetran’s push into transformation. It builds on earlier moves and reflects a broader strategy to make data infrastructure more connected, adaptable, and easier to trust. It’s a pragmatic step, not just toward new capabilities but toward making existing ones work better together.

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