Truist Buys Zaloni’s Data Platform to Bolster Analytics, AI

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Truist, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank with half a trillion dollars in assets, this week announced that it has acquired key assets from Zaloni, including its flagship data management platform, called Arena, along with Zaloni engineers and executives.

Founded in 2007, Zaloni rose to prominence in the heyday of the big data era as a provider of tools for managing data in Hadoop clusters. After Hadoop’s star faded, the Durham, North Carolina company pivoted to DataOps and positioned Arena as a platform for managing, cataloging, governing, ETLing, and securing data residing across multiple silos.

Truist, which is the 10th biggest bank in the U.S. by deposits, identified Zaloni’s platform as a good investment to help it accelerate its data governance, metadata management, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) programs.

“In partnership with Truist Ventures, we identified the Arena platform as an investment that will help us deliver better financial experiences, advance our strategy, and demonstrate our purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities,” Truist CIO Scott Case said in a press release.

In addition to the Zaloni product, about 20 employees will reportedly make the move to Truist, including Ben Sharma, Zaloni’s founder and chief product officer; Ashwin Nayak, its CTO; and the company’s product, engineering, and data teams. The Zaloni team will work under Truist’s Chief Data Officer Tracy Daniels in the company’s Enterprise Data Office in the Durham-Raleigh area. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Data and analytics are essential to delivering on the needs of our clients, teammates, and stakeholders,” Daniels said in a press release. “I’m thrilled that this deal includes the talented team that built the Arena platform, and that they will continue their data innovation journey as Truist teammates.

Zaloni’s offshore team will continue to service existing Zaloni customers while also providing services to Truist.

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