MariaDB develops open-source database software that combines transactional and analytical processing for everyday applications. The company says its technology serves as the data backbone for services used by millions of people every day and can save customers up to 90% of total database costs. MariaDB emphasizes an open-source methodology that it argues can be successfully monetized across a wide audience. The company has closed a $104 million Series D private placement and is pursuing additional capital-access routes to accelerate its go-to-market. Management intends to become a publicly traded company via a SPAC merger to broaden its investor base and fund growth. Upon completion of the announced transaction the merged entity will be known as MariaDB plc and led by current CEO Michael Howard. MariaDB Corporation builds and operates SkySQL, an open-source cloud database and DBaaS platform. The company focuses on expanding SkySQL cloud operations to meet enterprise demand for cloud and open-source database architectures. MariaDB has acquired Clustrix and MammothDB to expand functionality and plans to use new funding to scale operations and improve SkySQL performance. The company cites large customers including DBS Bank, ServiceNow, Walgreens, Samsung and says more than 75% of the Fortune 500 run MariaDB in private and public clouds. MariaDB remains committed to open source through the MariaDB Foundation, whose members include Microsoft, Booking.com, Tencent and Alibaba. Management did not disclose revenue or user growth figures, but said the business has grown strongly and declined to provide specific growth metrics. MariaDB Corporation builds the MariaDB enterprise open-source relational database. Its database can be deployed on premises with commodity hardware, across public, private or hybrid clouds, and is available from major cloud providers. MariaDB’s products power ServiceNow’s cloud-based platform and run workflows for large enterprises. ServiceNow’s platform operates up to 85,000 MariaDB databases and serves more than 25 billion queries per hour. MariaDB and ServiceNow are collaborative development partners and have delivered real-time data definition language (DDL) in MariaDB TX 3.0. The companies are continuing to work on several database solutions, including a distributed database strategy to address the needs of their largest customers. Michael Howard is CEO. MariaDB develops an open-source database server that forked MySQL and is used in private, public and hybrid cloud deployments. The company claims around 12 million global users and is the default in several Linux distributions, extending reach by another ~60 million users; notable customers include Booking.com, HP, Virgin Mobile and Wikipedia. Formerly known as SkySQL, MariaDB was originally founded in 2009 and merged with Monty Program AB in 2013. The product’s pedigree traces to Michael 'Monty' Widenius, the founder of Monty Program and a creator of MySQL. Recent financing activity has driven a material uplift in valuation, reflecting investor interest in cloud infrastructure and open-source database alternatives. The company has received multiple rounds of institutional backing, including a prior €25 million investment from the European Investment Bank earlier in the year. MariaDB Corporation sells for‑profit solutions built on the MariaDB open‑source SQL fork maintained by the MariaDB Foundation. The company offers commercial implementations of the database and seeks to monetize growing adoption of the open‑source project. MariaDB reports roughly 9 million users and 12 million downloads and has experienced a “magnificent increase in revenue velocity.” Recent product plans focus on database and security features, temporal processing, and Internet of Things (IoT) use cases, with IoT cited as a likely area for the company's next acquisition. Management is shifting the company’s center of gravity from Finland toward the U.S., and recent funding will be used for marketing and new product launches.

Total raised

$168M

Funding rounds

6

Latest round

Series D

Latest activity

Feb 2022