Redpanda is the developer of a modern streaming data platform designed to simplify real-time data processing at scale. Founded in 2019 by Alexander Gallego, the company offers an API-compatible alternative to Apache Kafka that provides a unified, high-performance engine for both real-time and historical enterprise data. By combining data streaming and storage into a single tool, Redpanda enables limitless data retention and greatly simplifies the work of building out a streaming architecture.

The platform has seen tremendous adoption, growing from thousands of clusters at the beginning of 2021 to hundreds of thousands by the end of that year. Redpanda's focus on infinite data retention has resonated strongly with developers building modern applications and large language models. Customers like Cisco, Akamai, Lacework, and Vodafone rely on Redpanda to process terabytes of data per day.

With over $65M in funding raised from top investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, and Haystack VC, Redpanda has the resources to expand rapidly. CEO Alex Gallego, a Latino founder, has grown the team from 22 to 160 employees and is building a diverse, distributed workforce spanning the globe. For developers looking to work at the cutting edge of data streaming, Redpanda represents an opportunity to join a high-growth startup with strong product-market fit as it scales to meet massive enterprise demand. The main challenges will be expanding go-to-market efforts, supporting larger customers, and maintaining the pace of innovation that has fueled the company's early success