Founders Everywhere: David Kircos
Founders Everywhere: David Kircos
David Kircos is the co-founder & CEO of Quadratic, a technical spreadsheet with Python, SQL, and AI that enables entire teams to collaborate on data analysis.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Quadratic is tackling a pervasive challenge in modern data analysis: the disconnect between sophisticated programming languages and the ubiquitous use of traditional spreadsheets. By seamlessly integrating popular data science tools like Python, SQL, and JavaScript within the familiar interface of spreadsheets, Quadratic empowers both technical and non-technical users to unlock the full potential of their data. Through its innovative platform, Quadratic is streamlining workflows, enhancing collaboration, and driving efficiency in data analysis for individuals, businesses and educational institutions.
Co-founder and CEO David Kircos brings a wealth of experience to Quadratic, having worked as an engineer at Techstars in Boulder. During his tenure, he played a pivotal role in designing and building software responsible for valuing 2,500 active investments and valued at over $600 million. He then went on to found Challenger Finance, which was acquired by TIFIN Wealth. David met his co-founder Peter Mills when Techstars invested in Peter’s previous company Modern, which was also acquired. Drawing on their shared entrepreneurial journey, David and Peter embarked on building Quadratic, leveraging their combined expertise to address the pressing needs of data analysis.
What inspired you to create Quadratic?
My journey to creating Quadratic started while I was working at Techstars in Boulder. I realized the pain points of working with Python, SQL and spreadsheets together for data analysis, especially when collaborating with non-technical team members. This frustration inspired me to create Quadratic, which merges data science languages with spreadsheet functionalities.
What’s Quadratic’s North Star?
Our North Star is to build the best possible tool to understand, analyze and collaborate on data analysis.
What sets Quadratic apart?
We offer a modern approach to spreadsheet usage, incorporating Python, SQL, Pandas, JavaScript, Excel formulas, and AI alongside traditional spreadsheet functionalities. Quadratic emphasizes a primary focus on technical users.
Tell us about some recent milestones that Quadratic has crushed.
We closed a $5.6 million seed round led by Google Ventures with participation from Catapult Ventures, Betaworks, Everywhere Ventures’ The Fund Rockies and angel investors including Pandas creator Wes McKinney, Replit CEO Amjad Masad and Cockroach Labs founder Spencer Kimball. We also amassed a user base of 45,000 and launched real-time multiplayer functionality within teams, enhancing collaborative data analysis capabilities.
What are the future plans for Quadratic?
Our focus is on responding to user feedback and enhancing the product to cater to diverse user needs. Key upcoming features include the ability to connect to databases and external data sources. We’re open source, so we’re free for individuals and educational institutions and paid for organizations, businesses and teams. There's no barrier to entry and we are casting a wide net.
What motivates you as a founder?
I am deeply passionate about building products, a passion that has been with me since I started developing software at a young age. I find fulfillment in creating solutions and pushing the boundaries of technology.
Fun fact: I really enjoy endurance sports. I've done marathons and 100 mile bike rides. The lesson there is you can't go 110% the whole time; you won't finish. I think it's exactly the same thing with starting a company, you have to stay at a sustainable pace.
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