Another day, another database company on my radar. This one’s a little different, though.
ScaleBase, a Newton, MA, startup that is trying to enhance the capabilities of existing databases, has raised a $10.5 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures and Ascent Venture Partners. Previous investor Cedar Fund also participated in the round, which brings ScaleBase’s total funding to about $15 million.
The startup also announced a new CEO as of today, Ram Metser, who joined ScaleBase as executive chairman in June. Metser, the former CEO of Guardium (acquired by IBM in 2009), succeeds Doron Levari, the founder and now chief technology officer of ScaleBase.
In the IT world, it seems everyone and their brother is trying to develop software that makes database systems (such as MySQL) more scalable and able to handle the explosion of queries and transactions coming through new Web and mobile apps. ScaleBase does this by taking a virtualization approach to managing database loads, so that businesses can still use their existing infrastructure and applications. That’s the idea, anyway. Its big customers include Autodesk and Mozilla.
There’s no shortage of related tech companies, most with complementary approaches to databases, in the Boston area: Akiban Technologies, VoltDB, NuoDB, ParElastic, Basho, Cloudant, and Tokutek, just to name a few. (We’ll be delving into IT infrastructure issues with some of these companies at our “Future of Big Data” conference next week.)
ScaleBase started in 2010 and is still fairly small, but expects to have about 40 employees by this time next year. The company has a new set of resources, investor partners, and leadership in Metser (pictured at left), so it seems ready to make some noise in the crowded sector of big data infrastructure.
