Total amount raised
$105 Million
Latest funding date
11/1/2021
Location
PlanetScale has successfully raised funding over four rounds, with the latest being a Series C led by Kleiner Perkins. The company is backed by a total of 19 investors, including SignalFire and Jack Altman.
Keep reading to explore the intricacies of PlanetScale's fundraising journey and the investors backing this innovative platform.
What Is PlanetScale?
PlanetScale is a private company based in Mountain View, California, specializing in database-as-a-service offerings. The company operates in the database, information technology, SaaS, and software industries.
With an employee count ranging from 51 to 100, PlanetScale leverages Vitess, an open-source sharding middleware system for MySQL, to provide scalable and high-performance cloud hosting services. The company is currently in the Series C funding stage.
How Much Funding Has PlanetScale Raised?
- Seed Round
- Amount Raised: USD 3,000,000
- Date: December 2018
- Lead Investors: SignalFire
- Valuation at Round: Not publicly disclosed
- Motivation Behind the Round: To kickstart the development of their database-as-a-service platform.
- Series A
- Amount Raised: USD 22,000,000
- Date: May 2019
- Lead Investors: Andreessen Horowitz
- Valuation at Round: Not publicly disclosed
- Motivation Behind the Round: To expand the team and accelerate product development.
- Series B
- Amount Raised: USD 30,000,000
- Date: June 2021
- Lead Investors: Insight Partners
- Valuation at Round: Not publicly disclosed
- Motivation Behind the Round: To further develop and expand their database service.
- Series C
- Amount Raised: USD 50,000,000
- Date: November 2021
- Lead Investors: Kleiner Perkins
- Valuation at Round: Not publicly disclosed
- Motivation Behind the Round: To support the general availability of its enterprise database service and to continue expanding its customer base and product features.
Total amount raised: USD 105,000,000. Current valuation: Not publicly disclosed.
Key Investors
- Kleiner Perkins
- Details: Kleiner Perkins is a venture capital firm that has been investing in early-stage to growth-stage companies since 1972. They are known for backing some of the most successful technology and life sciences companies.
- Investment Focus Areas: Technology, life sciences, high-growth industries.
- Notable Investments: Google, Amazon, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb.
- Insight Partners
- Details: Insight Partners is a private equity and venture capital firm that focuses on growth-stage software and internet businesses. They have a global presence and a strong track record of successful investments.
- Investment Focus Areas: Software, internet, data services.
- Notable Investments: Shopify, Twitter, Wix, DocuSign.
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Details: Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, is a venture capital firm that invests in seed to late-stage technology companies. They have a diverse portfolio across various sectors.
- Investment Focus Areas: Technology (enterprise, consumer, bio/healthcare, crypto, fintech).
- Notable Investments: Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Lyft, Slack, Coinbase.
- SignalFire
- Details: SignalFire is a venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage and growth-stage technology startups. They leverage data and technology to support their portfolio companies.
- Investment Focus Areas: Early-stage technology startups.
- Notable Investments: Grammarly, Frame.io, Ro, Zume.
- Tom Preston-Werner
- Details: Tom Preston-Werner is the former CEO and co-founder of GitHub. He is an active angel investor with a focus on technology startups.
- Investment Focus Areas: Technology startups, particularly in software and developer tools.
- Notable Investments: GitHub, Chatterbug, Redox.
What's Next for PlanetScale?
PlanetScale stands at the cusp of significant growth, driven by the burgeoning serverless database market. With its enterprise database service now generally available, the company is poised to attract a broader customer base, including high-profile clients like YouTube and GitHub. This expansion presents a premium market opportunity, particularly as cloud providers have yet to innovate significantly in database solutions.
Future fundraising efforts could be on the horizon to support this growth, leveraging the company's unique position and technology. However, challenges such as competition from major cloud providers and the need to maintain service scalability and reliability will require careful navigation. PlanetScale's ability to manage rapid growth and continue innovating will be crucial to its success.
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