# Feng Niu (slim)

> Feng Niu is co-founder of Alation. Alation on Anchor Terminal, with grades, an about and public profiles.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/feng-niu/index.md (~1,050 tokens) · this version ~880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/feng-niu/index.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/feng-niu/
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-28
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Co-founder, Alation.

Feng Niu co-founded Alation in 2012. A database and machine learning researcher, he met the problem of finding and trusting data in his work at Google and in academic research.

## What Feng builds

- [Alation](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.md), graded C, 60.3/100, in Company knowledge & data catalogues. Alation is a hosted data catalogue for tables, queries, BI reports, lineage and data quality. Agents reach it through REST APIs, a natural-language Aggregated Context API, a Python agent SDK and an MCP server on each cloud instance. Co-founder, Alation, researched 2026-10-28.

## Works with

- [Aaron Kalb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/aaron-kalb/), Co-founder, Alation
- [Satyen Sangani](https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/satyen-sangani/), Co-founder and CEO, Alation
- [Venky Ganti](https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/venky-ganti/), Co-founder, Alation

## Backed by

- [Thoma Bravo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/thoma-bravo/)
- [Sanabil Investments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/sanabil-investments/)
- [Costanoa Ventures](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/costanoa-ventures/)
- [Databricks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/databricks/)
- [Dell Technologies](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/dell-technologies/)
- [Hewlett Packard Enterprise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/hewlett-packard-enterprise/)
- [Icon Ventures](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/icon-ventures/)
- [Queensland Investment Corporation](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/queensland-investment-corporation/)
- [Riverwood Capital](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/riverwood-capital/)
- [Salesforce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/salesforce/)
- [Sapphire Ventures](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/sapphire-ventures/)
- [Union Grove](https://www.anchorterminal.com/investors/union-grove/)

## Questions

### Who is Feng Niu?

Feng Niu co-founded Alation in 2012. A database and machine learning researcher, he met the problem of finding and trusting data in his work at Google and in academic research.

### What does Alation, Inc. make?

Anchor Terminal lists Alation from Alation, Inc..

### Who has invested in Alation, Inc.?

The sources our research read name Thoma Bravo, Sanabil Investments, Costanoa Ventures, Databricks, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Icon Ventures, Queensland Investment Corporation, Riverwood Capital, Salesforce, Sapphire Ventures and Union Grove.

### How are Feng's tools graded?

Alation is graded C, 60.3 out of 100, on Anchor Terminal's benchmark, which scores every listing against the same checklist.

## Sources

- https://www.alation.com/
- https://www.alation.com/legal/support/
- https://www.alation.com/contact/
- https://www.alation.com/about/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alation

These are the people building the tools we list, named for their public role in the company or project behind a listing, from public pages, with the date it was researched.