Californian database startup Couchbase has secured a $105 million Series G funding round, bringing the Oracle-competitor’s total backing to around $234m, plus $50m in debt. Chief executive Matt Cain said it was an “up-round,” meaning investors bought in at a higher share price than in previous deals.
Couchbase hired Cain, a debut CEO, in 2017 as Couchbase’s price slumped and the company’s investment valued it at around $300m – well away from fellow Silicon Valley “unicorns,” or billion-dollar-value private firms.
Today over 500 enterprises use Couchbase’s NoSQL database software, including 30 Fortune 100 companies. Last year Couchbase enjoyed 50%-plus new business growth, and almost $100m in committed annual recurring revenue.
Couchbase’s seventh major round was led by GPI Capital, with participation from Accel, Sorenson Capital, North Bridge Venture Partners, Glynn Capital, Adams Street Partners, and Mayfield. It will expand Couchbase’s product development, and help it scale globally.
To close such a deal during the Coronavirus pandemic has been a source of great pride for Cain, who sent his entire staff home in mid-March. They—and normal life—still hasn’t returned. Cain told Business Insider the situation has cost “zero dip in productivity whatsoever.”
But models and contracts had to be renegotiated, so the round was a huge success. Now the firm has $12bn-valued MongoDB, and Oracle, in its sights.
“Application developers and enterprise architects rely on Couchbase to enable agile application development on a platform that performs at scale, from the public cloud to the edge, and provides operational simplicity and reliability,” said Cain.
“More and more, the largest companies in the world truly run their businesses on Couchbase, architecting their most business-critical applications on our platform.”