AWS Buys DuckLabs, Absorbing DuckDB's Two Founders Into Amazon
DuckDB remains free under an MIT license and the DuckDB Foundation, though Amazon already funded and worked with the team since 2024.
- Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt, DuckDB's creators, join AWS and keep steering its technical direction.
- DuckLabs, founded in Amsterdam, spent nearly a decade building DuckDB as a free analytical database.
- Amazon disclosed no purchase price; the deal is expected to close soon under customary conditions.
Why it matters: A license does not decide a project's course; whoever signs the two founders' paychecks does.