Collibra was founded in 2008 by Felix Van de Maele, Stijn Christiaens, Pieter De Leenheer, and Stan Christiaens at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. The founders started with academic research on semantic web technologies and data governance, then turned their work into a commercial product.
The Collibra Data Intelligence Platform covers data cataloging, data governance, data quality, data lineage, and data privacy. Organizations use it to create a single inventory of their data assets, define who owns and can access each dataset, enforce data policies, and track how data flows through systems.
Data Catalog is the core product — it automatically discovers and classifies data across databases, data warehouses, BI tools, and applications. Business users can search for datasets, understand their meaning through business glossaries, and see quality scores. Data stewards use the governance workflows to manage change requests, certify datasets, and enforce compliance.
Collibra moved its headquarters from Brussels to New York City in 2017 to be closer to enterprise customers. The company raised $250 million in Series G funding in 2022 at a valuation of $5.25 billion. Investors include CapitalG (Alphabet’s growth fund), ICONIQ Growth, and Sequoia Capital.
The platform serves more than 700 enterprise customers across financial services, healthcare, government, and technology sectors. Major customers include some of the world’s largest banks and pharmaceutical companies.
Van de Maele remains CEO. Collibra employs more than 1,200 people across offices in New York, Brussels, London, Gdansk, and other cities.
