Edelbyte, a data analytics startup founded by four former Microsoft engineers, came out of stealth on November 11, 2026 with $70 million in seed and Series A funding. Sequoia and Quiet Capital led the round, and the company says its data platform for AI agents can search and analyze huge amounts of data faster and for less money than older systems. The bet is simple: AI agents are about to ask your company’s data far more questions than people ever did.
Inside Edelbyte’s $70 Million Round
The money combines a seed round and a Series A. Sequoia and Quiet Capital led it, with Greenoaks and Swish Ventures also joining.
Edelbyte was founded in 2025 and is based in Tel Aviv and San Francisco. It already has about 40 employees spread across Israel, the US and Europe.
| Detail | What we know |
|---|---|
| Funding | $70 million (seed plus Series A) |
| Lead investors | Sequoia and Quiet Capital |
| Other investors | Greenoaks and Swish Ventures |
| Founded | 2025, in Tel Aviv and San Francisco |
| Team size | About 40 employees |
| Customers | Petabyte-scale deployments, including Fortune 500 companies |
Who Is Behind the Edelbyte Data Platform
The four cofounders spent more than a decade together at Microsoft. They helped build Azure Data Explorer, also known as Kusto, a managed service for real-time analysis of large streams of data.
The founding team includes:
- Avner Aharoni, CEO
- Evgeney Ryzhyk, CTO
- Alexander Sloutsky, VP of Engineering
- Yoni Leibowitz, VP of Platform Engineering
According to the company, the team decided that fixing older designs was not enough after their years on Kusto. Instead, they started fresh with a platform meant to be faster and cheaper from day one.
Why AI Agents Need a Different Data Platform
Here is the core problem Edelbyte is chasing. A human analyst might run a handful of queries an hour, but an AI agent can fire off many more, often in unexpected directions and across much more data.
That puts heavy pressure on computing costs, especially CPU time. Aharoni told Forbes that an engine built for agents “needs to be the fastest and the most cost efficient.”
One engine instead of many
Edelbyte says it uses a single unified engine with query federation, which lets it search data where it already lives. Its product page describes search, analytical queries, vector, graph and geospatial work in one platform, with options to run in any cloud, self-hosted or on-premises.
The company also says some customers can run up to ten times as many queries within the same budget. That is a company claim, and it has not been tested by outside reviewers yet.
Early customer traction
Edelbyte says it already runs petabyte-scale deployments with Fortune 500 customers. Aharoni also said the startup works with four large design partners running it in production.
A Crowded Race for Agent-Ready Data
Edelbyte is not alone in seeing this shift. Big players such as Databricks, Snowflake, Microsoft, Oracle and ClickHouse are all adding features that help agents work with company data.
The startup’s pitch is that it was built for agents from the ground up instead of adding AI on top of an older analytics product. Other startups chasing the agent wave, like Reco’s security platform and Pluto Security, are also raising large rounds as companies prepare for agents at work.
If you want a broader look at the tools in this space, our guide to data analytics tools covers options you can try today. You can also see how AI agents are replacing integration software at many companies.
What This Means for You
Most people will never log into Edelbyte directly. But the problem it targets will shape how quickly and cheaply AI assistants can answer questions about your business data.
- If you run data teams, expect query volume to climb as agents go live, and budget for compute costs early.
- If you are choosing a data platform, ask vendors how they handle heavy, unpredictable agent traffic, not just human dashboards.
- Treat cost-saving claims like “ten times as many queries” as a starting point, and test them on your own workloads.
- Watch whether big vendors respond with cheaper agent-focused pricing, which could benefit you even if you never switch.
For more on picking software for your company, see our list of business AI tools. You can follow more funding and launch stories on our AI news page.
Sources
Primary source: Edelbyte’s newsroom. Additional reporting from Forbes via Yahoo Finance and Globes, plus Edelbyte’s product page.
Conclusion
Edelbyte’s $70 million debut shows how seriously investors are taking the data side of the AI agent boom. The founders bring deep experience from building Azure Data Explorer, and they are betting that agents need a new kind of engine, not a patched-up old one. Its cost and speed claims still need outside testing, and it faces giant rivals. Still, if agents really do multiply the questions businesses ask of their data, a faster and cheaper platform could matter a lot.
