DuckLabs B.V.

Databases · Open Source · Cloud Infrastructure

Acquisition

AWS to acquire DuckLabs, maker of the open-source DuckDB database

The code stays with an independent nonprofit, testing whether a cloud giant can hire open-source talent without owning the project itself.

• Amazon Web Services signed a definitive agreement to acquire DuckLabs B.V., the Amsterdam-based company behind DuckDB, with the deal expected to close in early September 2026; financial terms were not disclosed.
• DuckDB is an embedded, in-process analytical SQL database that runs inside applications without a separate server, created by researchers Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt at Amsterdam's CWI institute.
• AWS is not acquiring the DuckDB open-source project itself; it will keep being governed by the independent nonprofit DuckDB Foundation and stay free under the MIT license.
• DuckLabs was bootstrapped rather than venture-funded, staying founder- and employee-owned for five years while growing to a team of more than 30 people in Amsterdam.
• DuckDB now sees more than one million downloads every day, according to DuckLabs.
• AWS and DuckLabs had already been collaborating since early 2025 on DuckDB support for Amazon S3 Tables and Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse, laying groundwork for the deal.
• The acquisition fits a pattern of cloud providers buying the commercial entities behind widely used open-source infrastructure, gaining engineering talent and influence while leaving the project's governance nominally independent.