Arun Murthy, a seasoned technology leader, is perhaps best known for his foundational work in the creation of Hadoop. He’s recently started a new venture called Isotopes. This entrepreneurial endeavor is focusing on some of the biggest challenges in managing big data. Isotopes emerged from stealth mode with an impressive $20 million seed funding round, led by Vab Goel at NTTVC, signaling strong investor confidence in its innovative vision.
Murthy’s path to Isotopes started more than 20 years ago at Yahoo—where he worked on the open-source project Hadoop. That innovative framework went on to become a foundational element of data processing today. After departing Yahoo, he co-founded Hortonworks in 2011. The company quickly made a name for itself by focusing on deep enterprise solutions built around Hadoop. In his time there, Hortonworks accomplished something almost incomprehensible by going public within four years of its founding. That achievement further shifted the tide towards favoring tech on tech’s issues.
When he departed Hortonworks in 2021 without a defined plan of what’s next, Murthy was faced with a decision. His next step would only materialize after a venture capitalist friend introduced him to Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI. Murthy likened his experience at Scale AI to the process of pursuing a PhD. Aaron focused a lot on the deep learning there because of his past experiences. This experience inspired the next step in his entrepreneurial journey.
Isotopes, which Murthy co-founded with Prasanth Jayachandra and Gopal Vijayaraghavan. The startup’s mission is to change the way organizations think about and use their data. The advanced agent developed by Isotopes can locate data across various storage systems, a functionality that addresses one of the biggest challenges in data management. This agent has the ability to clean data, to make sure it’s up to snuff before all the other data is used for analysis.
Isotopes’ $20 million seed round is an impressive debut for the new startup. Vab Goel, former NorWest Ventures associate heavy on technology pipeline, was sold on Isotopes’ promise. The new funding will allow the growing team to speed up development and broaden their market reach.
Given Murthy’s deep roots in technology, Isotopes is best placed in the competitive landscape of data solutions. His experience overseeing around 200 employees while at Cloudera just adds to his qualifications to steer Isotopes in the right direction. Cloudera got a late start on its IPO, being taken private in 2021 after intervention by activist investor Carl Icahn.
Isotopes has filed for ten patents, already proving its focus on innovation and protecting intellectual property. The startup’s real mission is to build the most potent solutions possible. Together, these solutions will make data management processes easier, faster and better for companies across industries and sectors.
