Felix Van de Maele, Stijn Christiaens, and Pieter De Leenheer were classmates and researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel when they recognised that enterprises were collecting vast pools of data but had no systematic way to understand, trust, or govern it. In 2008, amid the global financial crisis, they founded Collibra in Brussels to bring order to the chaos with a collaborative data governance platform.

The early years were about survival and product development, but the company's breakthrough came as regulation (GDPR, CCPA) and the explosion of enterprise data created urgent demand for data intelligence. Collibra expanded to New York, built a blue-chip customer base including major financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies, and raised over $590 million in venture funding. Dawn first invested at the Series B stage and has participated in every subsequent round through to the company's Series G in 2021, which valued Collibra at $5.25 billion. Today, with over 700 customers worldwide, Collibra is the category-defining leader in data intelligence.