Sep 29, 2022

Kafkawize joins Aiven to continue open source journey

Aiven, the open source cloud data platform company, today announced Kafkawize, an open source data governance tool for Apache Kafka®, is joining Aiven.

On the heels of its successful Series D funding round, Aiven reinvests in its company growth and ongoing commitment to open source program via investment in Kafkawize, now Klaw.

HELSINKI, Finland — September 29, 2022Aiven, the open source cloud data platform company, today announced Kafkawize, an open source data governance tool for Apache Kafka®, is joining Aiven. Marking a first for the company, this acquisition signals Aiven’s evolution from an open-source contributor to a steward of open-source communities. As part of this transition, Kafkawize has been renamed Klaw.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Klaw to the Aiven family and strengthen our collective commitment to open source,” said Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO and co-founder of Aiven. “Enhancing our ability to support the open source community at scale, this acquisition is a natural progression of the work being done in our Open Source Program Office, and we can’t wait to continue evolving our commitment in an impactful way.”

Klaw directly meets the needs of developers by providing a Kafka governance interface that can manage topic-level operations. Klaw has joined Aiven’s Open Source Program Office where it will continue to be developed as an open source project under the Apache License 2.0. Kafkawize's Founder and developer, Murali Basani, will also join the Aiven Open Source Program Office to continue working on Klaw.

“While most organizations are widely adopting Kafka in their technology stacks, companies are also struggling with improper governance of hundreds of topics created and their authorizations. I started Kafkawize in 2018 to help answer important questions around topic ownership and security. I wanted to fill these and other gaps around the governance of Kafka topics, ACLs, schemas and connectors in an auditable way.” said Basani. “With Aiven’s support, Klaw can reach its full potential in the coming years. I am excited to continue this open source journey at Aiven.”

Klaw provides data governance with enterprise grade security and user management functionality, solving obstacles organizations face when scaling the adoption of Apache Kafka®, such as user management and topic-level operations. As Apache Kafka® utilization becomes more complex with broader use and a growing ecosystem, Klaw helps organizations make better decisions, enhance regulatory compliance and optimize efficiency of their Apache Kafka® footprint at scale.

In addition to the Open Source Program Office that was founded in April of 2021, Aiven also supports its employees in their personal open source pursuits through its Plankton Program, a program that allows employees to claim compensation for the time they spend on open source activities outside of work. It allows Aiven to support and recognize the extra work and improvements its employees are having on the overall open source ecosystem.

For more information on Aiven, please visit https://aiven.io/.

About Aiven

Headquartered in Helsinki and with hubs in Berlin, Boston, Paris, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto, Aiven provides managed open source data technologies, like PostgreSQL, Apache Kafka and OpenSearch, on all major clouds. Through Aiven, developers can do what they do best: create applications. Meanwhile, Aiven does what they do best: manage cloud data infrastructure. Aiven enables customers to drive business results from open source that trigger true transformations far beyond their own backyard. Most recently, Aiven achieved a $3B valuation and has now raised $420M total funding backed by its investors Atomico, Earlybird, Eurazeo, IVP, Lifeline, Salesforce Ventures, and World Innovation Lab. To learn more about Aiven, visit aiven.io and follow @aiven_io on Twitter.

Media Contacts

Aiven

Rachel Romoff

rachel.romoff@aiven.io