Yesterday NoSQL company Citrusleaf announced an undisclosed new round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Apparently the someone thought “Citrusleaf” was too soft and friendly a name for today’s more mature NoSQL audience, so the company also got a grimmer, grittier name: Aerospike. But it didn’t stop there. The company needed even more new, so it today Aerospike announced its acquisition of the “NewSQL” database AlchemyDB.
NewSQL databases embrace the relational database model while trying to solve the same scalability issues that NoSQL databases tackle. For example, ReThinkDB, Drizzle and Tokutek all to improve MySQL.
AlchemyDB took the opposite approach to this concept by adding relational database management to the NoSQL database Redis. And in order to live up to its mad science-y name, creator Russell Sullivan also added Neo4j-style graph database layer to it.
According to Aerospike’s announcement Sullivan is joining Aerospike to help Aerospike assimilate AlchemyDB’s super powers add some of his creation’s features to Aerospike’s products. In other words, it’s an acqui-hire. Representatives says the timing of the acquisition and the name change is coincidental, but I like the idea the two companies merging into one alchemically perfect hermaphrodite company with a new name.
Previous investors Draper Associates and Alsop Louie Partners also participated in the round.