Enterprise SaaS
Finland's database provider MariaDB raises $9m and appoints new CEO and CTO
By Jonathan Keane , January 21st, 2016.
Finnish open source database provider MariaDB has raised $9 million in equity funding from investors including Intel Capital and California Technology Ventures. The company has also appointed Michael Howard as its new CEO and Michael "Monty" Widenius as CTO.
Howard previously headed up EMC's big data division and was CEO of C9 while Widenius is the creator of MySQL and a co-founder of MySQL AB.
The Espoo-based company, formerly known as SkySQL, will be using its new funds to power its database development and sales. The firm closed its last funding round in March 2015, raising €3 million. Intel Capital previously invested in the company in 2013 as well.
"MariaDB's success as an open source technology goes hand-in-hand with its growing popularity in the commercial market," said Widenius. "As part of the MariaDB team, I will be able to create innovative data management capabilities more quickly, and ensure these are open and accessible to the global development community by continuing the close collaboration with the MariaDB Foundation."
Widenius joins as CTO having already been serving as a board member of MariaDB and the MariaDB Foundation, a non-profit that promotes and protects the company's codebase.
With Howard taking the helm as CEO, he will be tasked with leading the company's products and services in the coming years and building on its customer base of nine million users in the data management industry.
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