Qbeast

qbeast.io ↗ ·Barcelona ·Seed

Qbeast is a data infrastructure company that builds a multi-dimensional indexing and smart data-layout engine for open lakehouse formats (Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg, Apache Hudi) and engines like Spark, Trino, DuckDB, Databricks and BigQuery, claiming 2-6x faster queries, 62% shorter AI training times and ~70% less data processed. Founded in 2020 as a spin-off of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) by Cesare Cugnasco with Pol Santamaria, Paola Pardo, Clemens Jesche and Nicolas Escartin, it now presents Srikanth Satya, Cesare Cugnasco and Flavio Junqueira as its co-founders after a leadership rebuild. It raised a $7.6M (~€6.5M) seed round in August 2025 led by Peak XV's Surge, and operates from Barcelona (Europe HQ), Bellevue WA (US HQ) and Bengaluru.

Founded

2020

Founders

Total funds raised

€9.5M

SectorsAI & Data, Enterprise Software, Data Infrastructure, Deeptech & Hardware, Open Source Start-up MapAI & Data › AI data infrastructure

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Founders

Cesare Cugnasco

Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer

Clemens Jesche

Co-Founder (founding team, BSC spin-off)

Flavio Junqueira

Co-Founder & CTO

Nicolas Escartin

Co-Founder (founding team, BSC spin-off)

Paola Pardo

Co-Founder (founding team, BSC spin-off)

Pol Santamaria

Co-Founder (founding team, BSC spin-off)

Srikanth Satya

Co-Founder & CEO

Global models 5

Starburst

United States · www.starburst.io ↗

Sells enterprise software that speeds up queries on open lakehouse formats (Trino-based), paid by data teams on a license or consumption basis, like Qbeast's performance layer.

$414MComparable

Dremio

United States · www.dremio.com ↗

Sells a lakehouse acceleration and query platform on Apache Iceberg, including automatic data-layout optimisation and reflections, to enterprise data teams.

$410MComparable

Firebolt

Israel · www.firebolt.io ↗

Sells a high-performance query engine whose main pitch is fast queries through sparse indexing and smart data layout, charged on consumption to data-heavy companies.

$264MComparable

Onehouse

United States · www.onehouse.ai ↗

Sells a managed open-lakehouse service (Hudi, Iceberg, Delta) that automates table optimisation, clustering and layout so that any engine can query faster and more cheaply.

$68MComparable

Tabular

United States · tabular.io ↗

Sold managed Apache Iceberg table storage with automatic compaction and layout optimisation for multiple engines, before Databricks acquired it in 2024.

$37MComparable

In the same niche 31 others

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+25 more →

Notes: Most funded first

Investors 7

Open as list →

Elaia

elaia.com

2 rounds, led 1 · 2023–25 France

Inveready

inveready.com

2 rounds, led 1 · 2021–23 Spain

Sabadell Venture Capital

www.bancsabadell.com

2 rounds, led 1 · 2021–23 Spain

Peak XV Partners

Led Seed 2025 Singapore

Impulsetogrow

Seed 2021 Spain

Oscar Salazar

Seed 2023 United States

Funding rounds 3

Date	Round	Amount	Lead
2025-08-04	Seed	€6.5M	Peak XV Partners +2 more
2023-02-23	Seed	€2.5M	Elaia +3 more
2021-03-31	Seed (estimated)	€520K	Inveready, BStartup (Banco Sabadell) +1 more

News 2

Open as list →

Published	Article
2025-08-06	Barcelona-based Qbeast raises €6.5 million to help open data platforms scale efficiently ↗ EU-Startups 2025-08-06
2025-08-04	Qbeast secures $7.6M in seed funding to help open data platforms scale efficiently ↗ GlobeNewswire 2025-08-04