DataStax Nabs $115 Million to Help Build Real-Time Applications

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DataStax, the commercial vendor behind the Apache Cassandra NoSQL database, today announced that it has raised $115 million in a private equity round led by Goldman Sachs. The company says it will use the round to expand business globally and continue developing tools for building real-time applications in the cloud.

Like most database companies, DataStax is moving aggressively into the cloud. The Santa Clara, California company, which is now 12 years old, is in the thick part of its customer growth curve for Astra DB, the cloud-based, managed version of Cassandra that it first unveiled in 2019 as Constellation (it changed the name to Astra a year later). More recently, DataStax launched Astra Streaming, a hosted pub/sub offering based on open source Apache Pulsar, a competitor to Apache Kafka.

The addition of streaming data to DataStax’s database repertoire is important for addressing the business opportunities around data that companies are facing right now, says DataStax chairman and CEO Chet Kapoor.

“Unleashing the value of real-time data is today’s enterprise superpower, the only way to stay in the game,” Kapoor tells Datanami via email. “According to McKinsey, data being processed and delivered in real time is predicted to define data-driven enterprises within the next year. The ability to leverage new data-driven experience will serve a wide range of human needs, create virtuous cycles between companies and their customers, and move markets.”

Many companies struggle to combine two disparate data management disciplines, which has databases, which excel at storing historical data, on the one side, and streaming platforms, which are designed for managing event-based data in motion, on the other. DataStax recognized this challenge as a market opportunity, which it defines as real time applications and is tackling with its Astra lineup.

“DataStax is committed to powering the data that matters most – the real-time data that delivers instantaneous customer experiences, immediate intelligence, and fuels machine learning,” Kapoor says. “We will continue to evolve and differentiate our open data stack as the potential for real-time data continues to take shape.”

Kapoor says the company is in a great financial position, and will use the additional funds from the equity round to accelerate global expansion and development of our Astra DB and Astra Streaming.

“These technologies comprise the core layers of DataStax’s open data stack for building and running real-time applications on any cloud, at massive scale,” Kapoor says. “In addition, we will use this funding to continue expanding into strategic new markets to meet increasing global demands.”

DataStax says it has more than 800 customers around the world using its services, including names like as Capital One, Verizon, The Home Depot, and Overstock. Kapoor says the company has enjoyed over 350% year-over-year sales growth for Astra DB. More than 50% of its new annual recurring revenue was attributed to Astra DB, he says.

DataStax has raised $342.6 million across 10 funding rounds, including a seed round, venture rounds A through E, a couple of secondary market rounds, and an additional venture round. “This round gives us the financial flexibility to pursue both organic and inorganic growth opportunities as we move toward public markets,” Kapoor says.

The round was led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with participation from RCM Private Markets fund advised by Rokos Capital Management (US) LP, Singapore-based global investor, EDB Investments Pte. Ltd. and DataStax’s existing investors including Crosslink Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, OnePrime Capital, and other current investors.

Don Dixon, DataStax CFO, hinted at the possibilty of DataStax becomign a public company, which is a step that his two biggest NoSQL rivals, MongoDB and Couchbase, have already taken. “This round gives us the financial flexibility to pursue both organic and inorganic growth opportunities as we move toward public markets,” he says.

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DataStax Taps Pulsar for Streaming Data Platform

Cassandra Now Officially In the Cloud with DataStax Astra

Apache Cassandra 4.0 Launches