Yugabyte Secures $48M to Accelerate Cloud-Native Database Adoption

Yugabyte Secures $48 Million to Fuel Cloud-Native Database Growth

Driven by increasing adoption of cloud-native applications, Yugabyte, the creator of the open-source YugabyteDB database, is experiencing significant growth in demand, particularly among large enterprise clients. The company has announced a new financing round of $48 million to capitalize on this positive trend.

Investment Details

This funding represents an extension of the startup’s $30 million Series B round completed last June. Lightspeed Venture Partners spearheaded the investment, with contributions from Greenspring Associates, Dell Technologies Capital, Wipro Ventures, and 8VC. To date, Yugabyte has raised a total of $103 million.

Accelerated Cloud Adoption Drives Demand

According to Kannan Muthukkaruppan, Yugabyte’s co-founder and president, the company observed a substantial surge in interest for both its open-source and commercial offerings in 2020. This increase coincided with the accelerated migration to the cloud experienced by many organizations due to the pandemic.

“The distributed SQL market is rapidly evolving,” Muthukkaruppan explained. “Over the past six months, we’ve seen a consistent pattern: Fortune 500 companies across sectors like finance, retail, and telecommunications are deploying Yugabyte as their core database for mission-critical services.”

Open-Source Community Expansion

Alongside enterprise adoption, interest in the open-source version of the product is also growing rapidly. The company’s Slack community for open-source users experienced a fourfold increase in membership throughout 2020.

Funding to Accelerate Development

This momentum prompted the decision to seek additional funding, stated co-founder and CTO Karthik Ranganathan. “We identified opportunities to accelerate our progress, which weren’t feasible with the initial $30 million,” he noted. While initially considering a $15-20 million secondary raise, strong investor interest resulted in a $48 million investment.

Enterprise Focus Under New Leadership

Bill Cook, formerly president of Pivotal, joined Yugabyte as CEO alongside the previous funding round in June. His focus has been on expanding market reach within larger, high-value enterprise accounts.

“The last six to seven months have been dedicated to engaging with enterprise clients and developing our developer-focused cloud offering,” Cook said.

Yugabyte’s Product Suite

Yugabyte offers a tiered product lineup. This includes the open-source YugabyteDB, a fully managed cloud service called Yugabyte Cloud, and a self-managed cloud version, Yugabyte Platform. The latter option appeals to large enterprises seeking cloud benefits while retaining control over their data and infrastructure.

Growth and Diversity Initiatives

Yugabyte has doubled its employee base from 50 to 100 in the past year and anticipates reaching 200 employees by year-end. The leadership team is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, acknowledging the ongoing challenges in achieving this goal.

“We are continually working to improve diversity across all levels of the organization,” Cook stated. “We recognize that this is an ongoing effort and remain dedicated to making progress.”

Remote Collaboration and Future Outlook

Despite limited in-person interaction since June due to the pandemic, the company’s leadership team reports successful remote collaboration. They express confidence in the company’s trajectory, regardless of physical location.

Note: This article was updated to reflect the company’s clarification that the funding round is a B-1, not a Series C.

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