Datavolo built multimodal data pipeline infrastructure for generative AI, founded in 2023 by CEO Joe Witt (the original creator of Apache NiFi) and Luke Roquet, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. In November 2024, Snowflake announced a definitive agreement to acquire Datavolo, folding its data-pipeline technology into Snowflake's platform.
Datavolo lets engineers describe a data pipeline in natural language and turns that description into a working NiFi dataflow, handling the acquisition, processing, and distribution of unstructured and multimodal data (text, images, audio, video) that generative AI applications need to stay grounded in a company's own content. The company positioned its roadmap around three layers of the AI data stack: pipelines, orchestration, and observability/governance.
Datavolo suits data and platform engineering teams building retrieval-augmented or context-aware AI applications who need production-grade pipelines for messy, multimodal source data rather than structured rows and columns. Pricing is not published; prospective customers contact Datavolo directly for a custom quote or private offer, and the Snowflake acquisition adds a layer of uncertainty around how the standalone product evolves going forward.
