Numbers Station
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
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Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Numbers Station built AI agents for enterprise data workflows. Spun out of Stanford University's AI research labs in 2021 by co-founders Chris Aberger, Ines Chami, Sen Wu, and Chris Ré, its platform used large language models to let users automate complex data tasks — cleaning, transformation, enrichment, analysis — with plain English instead of SQL or custom scripts. It raised a $17.5 million Series A led by Madrona, with Norwest Venture Partners and others. On May 20, 2025, it was acquired by data intelligence company Alation for an undisclosed sum, its agents to be combined with Alation's metadata foundation.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Numbers Station spun out of Stanford's AI research labs, founded by Chris Aberger, Ines Chami, Sen Wu, and Chris Ré to apply AI agents to enterprise data problems.
- Raised $17.5M
Numbers Station raised a $17.5 million Series A led by Madrona, with participation from Norwest Venture Partners and Factory.
- Acquired by Alation
On May 20, 2025, Alation announced the acquisition of the 18-person Numbers Station for an undisclosed sum; its AI agents would be integrated into Alation's platform.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
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