VoltDB Revs Up for Fast-Database Race With $9.8M More

One of the quieter database-tech startups around town is VoltDB. I’m not sure why that is, but probably because databases are hard for non-techies to understand—and there are so many database startups in the Boston area.

Nevertheless, Bedford, MA-based VoltDB is going about its business, and this week it announced it raised $9.8 million in new venture funding, bringing its total raised to $31.3 million. Unnamed strategic investors led the round, and previous investors Kepha Partners and Sigma Prime Ventures also participated.

VoltDB got started in 2009 by Mike Stonebraker and Scott Jarr. Yes, this is another Stonebraker company. The man is everywhere when it comes to databases, and he won the prestigious Turing Award this year for his efforts.

VoltDB’s database technology is all about speed. Speed of handling transactions, doing analytics, and trying to help enterprise companies make better business decisions. It’s a crowded field full of incumbents like Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft, as well as startups like NuoDB (which got a new CEO this week), Tesora (which raised new money last month), and Deep Information Sciences (which raised money this spring and moved from New Hampshire to Boston).

Bruce Reading leads VoltDB as the CEO. He joined the startup in 2012 and was previously a senior executive at Gomez, an application performance management company that was acquired by Compuware in 2009.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.