TileDB Rebrands as Tile.ai, Names New CEO and Secures Strategic Investment

The company becomes Tile.ai and introduces a governed AI data layer that helps organizations safely use sensitive data with AI — wherever it lives.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- TileDB, the company behind the open-source array engine for multimodal data, today announced its rebrand as Tile.ai and introduced the Enterprise AI Data Substrate — the governed layer that makes an enterprise's data securely usable by AI agents across its applications and data, wherever it lives — now available in private preview. As part of this transition, Tile.ai has appointed longtime life sciences technology leader and TileDB Board Director George Llado as Chief Executive Officer and announced a strategic investment led by existing investor Two Bear Capital, with participation from Amgen Ventures. Founder Stavros Papadopoulos, who served as CEO for the past nine years, is returning full-time to product and vision as Chief Product Officer.

The rapid adoption of AI in life sciences and other regulated industries has created a critical bottleneck: the data that matters most remains fragmented across instruments, files, databases, and cloud services—making it nearly impossible to share with AI agents safely and securely. Tile.ai's Enterprise AI Data Substrate solves this by connecting scattered data to the AI tools that enterprises already run, so agents can find, access, and use it in place — under existing controls, with lineage and reproducibility preserved.

"Ever since the creation of TileDB during my time as a researcher at Intel Labs and MIT, customers have come to us to store and query their most complex data faster than anything else could," said Stavros Papadopoulos, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Tile.ai. "Over the last two years, they began asking how to make that data usable by AI in a safe way, where it already lives, and without losing control of who can see what. Tile.ai is our answer to that shift: a substrate that makes enterprise data discoverable, accessible, and governed for the AI era."

To lead the company through this next phase of commercial scale, Tile.ai has named George Llado as Chief Executive Officer. Llado brings more than three decades of leadership in life sciences and regulated enterprises, including Chief Information Officer roles at Merck and Alexion Pharmaceuticals. He has served on TileDB's Board since 2024.

"Enterprise AI is not failing because companies lack models or ambition. It is stalling because the underlying data is scattered, difficult to govern, and lacks the trusted foundation required to deploy AI responsibly at scale," said George Llado, Chief Executive Officer of Tile.ai. "Tile.ai addresses that problem directly by activating enterprise data, in place, into a governed, AI-ready substrate without forcing companies into another costly data migration project."

Tile.ai also announced a strategic financing round led by Two Bear Capital, which increased its existing investment, with participation from Amgen Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of biotechnology pioneer Amgen. Funding supports Tile.ai's growth as the Enterprise AI Data Substrate and will accelerate product development, go-to-market efforts, and deployment to early adopters and design partners in data-intensive, regulated sectors.

"Throughout every investment cycle I've witnessed, ultimate value inevitably manifests itself in the foundational layer upon which everything else is built," said Mike Goguen, Founder & Managing Partner of Two Bear Capital. "In the enterprise AI ecosystem, that defining layer belongs to whoever makes enterprise data truly actionable for autonomous agents. That is precisely why we led this round—Tile.ai is engineering that critical substrate."

The company will continue to maintain the TileDB array engine as an open-source project under the TileDB name. Tile.ai is now in private preview with design partners in regulated industries, and companies can request early access at tile.ai.

About Tile.ai
Tile.ai is the Enterprise AI Data Substrate — the governed layer that activates an enterprise's data for AI, wherever it lives. Built by the team behind the open-source TileDB array engine — trusted in production for complex, multimodal data at leading life sciences and healthcare organizations, and cited in two Gartner® Hype Cycle™ reports for healthcare and life sciences — Tile.ai is in private preview with design partners in regulated industries. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Learn more at tile.ai.

About Amgen Ventures
Since 2004, Amgen Ventures has invested in healthcare innovation to advance breakthrough medicines and technologies that will bring transformative medicines to patients. For more information, visit www.amgenbd.com.

About Two Bear Capital
Founded in 2019 by Mike Goguen, Two Bear Capital is a venture capital firm investing in brilliant entrepreneurs with breakthrough solutions to complex and critical problems. With its unique approach to venture capital, Two Bear Capital's vision is to build enduring, high-impact businesses that benefit society while delivering for investors. The firm primarily focuses on early founder-led companies with disruptive life sciences and technology innovations. Two Bear Capital has offices in Menlo Park, San Diego, Boston, and New York, with its home base in Whitefish, Montana. For more information, visit: www.twobearcapital.com.

Media contact:
Simon Valentine, [email protected]

SOURCE Tile.ai