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Scaling for the Future with Cockroach Labs

Cockroach Labs | The Brand Hopper

Cockroach Labs is a leading software company that specializes in developing cloud-native distributed database management systems. The startup was founded in 2015 by a team of former Google engineers, including Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, and Ben Darnell, and is headquartered in New York City with additional offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Edinburgh, Scotland.. Cockroach Labs has since become one of the fastest-growing database management system providers, with a wide range of clients, including major corporations such as Comcast, Bose, and Baidu.

The name “Cockroach” is a reference to the resilient nature of the insect, which can survive in harsh environments and even nuclear disasters. Similarly, Cockroach Labs has developed a distributed database system that is designed to be resilient, scalable, and highly available. The system is based on a unique architecture called the “Spanner-inspired, globally-distributed SQL database,” which allows for consistent, low-latency access to data from any location around the world.

Cockroach Labs has been recognized by several industry analysts and experts for its innovative approach to database management. In 2018, Gartner named Cockroach Labs as a “Cool Vendor” in the area of data management, citing its ability to “support hybrid environments with its scale-out and geo-distributed architecture.” Additionally, Cockroach Labs has received several rounds of funding from top investors, including Benchmark, GV, and Index Ventures, with a total of $633 million in funding to date.

The company has also released several open-source tools and technologies, including CockroachDB, CockroachCloud, and CockroachDB for Kubernetes, which have gained popularity among developers and IT professionals worldwide. With its focus on innovation, resilience, and scalability, Cockroach Labs is poised to continue leading the way in the cloud-native database management space for years to come.



Cockroach Labs Founding History

Cockroach Labs was founded in 2015 by three former Google employees: Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, and Ben Darnell. The company was created with the goal of building a new kind of database system that could handle the demands of modern cloud-native applications, which require high scalability, resilience, and availability.

Founders, Cockroach Labs | The Brand Hopper
Founders, Cockroach Labs

Prior to founding Cockroach Labs, the three founders had worked together on a number of open-source projects, including the popular image editing software GIMP. They also had experience working on Google’s infrastructure team, where they helped develop some of the company’s internal database systems.

In 2014, the founders began working on a new database system that would combine the scalability and fault-tolerance of NoSQL databases with the consistency and reliability of traditional SQL databases. They named the project CockroachDB, after the resilient and hard-to-kill insects that are known for their ability to survive in harsh environments.

After several years of development, the founders launched CockroachDB as an open-source project in 2016. The project quickly gained popularity among developers who were looking for a new kind of database system that could handle the demands of modern cloud-native applications.

In 2015, Cockroach Labs raised $6.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Benchmark, with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital, and Index Ventures. The funding enabled the company to expand its team and accelerate development of CockroachDB.

Since then, Cockroach Labs has continued to grow and expand, with additional funding rounds and strategic partnerships with companies such as AWS and Google Cloud. Today, CockroachDB is used by a wide range of organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, to power their most critical applications and services.

Cockroach Labs Products & Services

Cockroach Labs provides a distributed SQL database system. Their main product is called CockroachDB, which is a cloud-native, highly scalable, and resilient database solution designed to handle data in a distributed environment.

CockroachDB is built on top of a unique and innovative architecture that combines the best features of both traditional SQL databases and NoSQL databases. It uses a distributed key-value store to manage data across multiple nodes in a cluster, ensuring that the data is always available and consistent, even in the face of node failures or network outages.

Some of the key features of CockroachDB include:

Scalability: CockroachDB is designed to scale horizontally, which means that you can add new nodes to the cluster to handle additional workload and data storage capacity. This makes it ideal for applications with rapidly changing data volumes or unpredictable traffic patterns.

Resilience: CockroachDB is designed to be highly available and fault-tolerant, which means that it can automatically recover from node failures without losing any data or compromising performance. It also supports geo-replication, which enables you to replicate data across multiple data centers for additional resiliency.

Consistency: CockroachDB provides strong consistency guarantees, which means that all clients see the same view of the data at all times, regardless of which node they connect to. This is important for applications that require accurate and up-to-date data.

Compatibility: CockroachDB is compatible with the SQL language and supports a wide range of SQL features, including transactions, indexing, and joins. This makes it easy to migrate existing applications that use SQL databases to CockroachDB without needing to rewrite the application code.

In addition to CockroachDB, Cockroach Labs also offers a range of services to help customers deploy and manage their databases. These include:

CockroachCloud: CockroachCloud is a fully managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) offering that allows customers to run CockroachDB in the cloud without needing to manage the underlying infrastructure themselves. CockroachCloud is available on all major cloud platforms, including AWS, Azure, and GCP.

CockroachDB Enterprise: CockroachDB Enterprise is a version of CockroachDB that includes additional features and capabilities, such as advanced security, auditing, and monitoring. It is designed for customers who need to run CockroachDB in production environments with demanding security and compliance requirements.

Professional services: Cockroach Labs offers a range of professional services to help customers with database design, architecture, and migration. Their team of experts can provide guidance and support throughout the entire database lifecycle, from planning and deployment to maintenance and optimization.

Overall, Cockroach Labs provides a comprehensive set of products and services to help customers build and manage highly scalable and resilient distributed databases. Whether you need a fully managed database in the cloud or an enterprise-grade database for on-premises deployment, Cockroach Labs has a solution to meet your needs.



Business Model of Cockroach Labs

The company’s business model is based on a combination of open-source software and commercial offerings.

At its core, CockroachDB is an open-source project that is available under the Apache 2.0 license. This means that anyone can download, use, and modify the software for free. Cockroach Labs is committed to the open-source community and encourages developers to contribute to the project and help improve the software.

However, Cockroach Labs also offers a range of commercial products and services that are designed to help customers deploy and manage CockroachDB in production environments. These offerings include:

CockroachCloud: CockroachCloud is a fully managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) offering that allows customers to run CockroachDB in the cloud without needing to manage the underlying infrastructure themselves. CockroachCloud is a subscription-based service that customers pay for based on their usage.

CockroachDB Enterprise: CockroachDB Enterprise is a version of CockroachDB that includes additional features and capabilities, such as advanced security, auditing, and monitoring. It is designed for customers who need to run CockroachDB in production environments with demanding security and compliance requirements. CockroachDB Enterprise is a commercial offering that customers purchase through a subscription-based model.

Professional services: Cockroach Labs offers a range of professional services to help customers with database design, architecture, and migration. Their team of experts can provide guidance and support throughout the entire database lifecycle, from planning and deployment to maintenance and optimization. Professional services are a fee-based offering that customers can purchase as needed.

Overall, Cockroach Labs’ business model is based on providing a powerful and flexible database system that is available to the open-source community, while also offering a range of commercial products and services that provide additional value and support to customers who need it. The company’s goal is to make it as easy as possible for customers to use CockroachDB in any environment, whether on-premises or in the cloud, and to help them get the most out of their data.



Funding and Investors of Cockroach Labs

Cockroach Labs has raised a total of $355 million in funding to date, from a range of investors including venture capital firms, strategic partners, and individual investors. Here is a breakdown of the company’s funding rounds:

Seed round: In 2015, Cockroach Labs raised $6.25 million in a seed round led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Google Ventures (now GV), Work-Bench, and others.

Series A: In 2016, Cockroach Labs raised $20 million in a series A funding round led by Benchmark, with participation from GV, Index Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.

Series B: In 2017, Cockroach Labs raised $27 million in a series B funding round led by Redpoint with participation from BenchmarkGVIndex Ventures and FirstMark.

Series C: In 2019, Cockroach Labs raised $55.3 million in a series C funding round led by Altimeter Capital and Tiger Global along with existing investor GV, Benchmark, Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, FirstMark Capital and Work-Bench, also participated.

Series D: In 2020, Cockroach Labs raised $86.6 million in a series D funding round led by Altimeter Capital, with participation from Bond, Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures, and Tiger Global Management.

Series E: In 2021, Cockroach Labs raised $160 million in a series E funding round led led by Altimeter Capital, with participation from new investors Greenoaks and Lone Pine, along with existing investors Benchmark, Bond, FirstMark, GV, Index Ventures and Tiger Global. The startup was valued at $2 billion post this round.

Series F: In 2022, Cockroach Labs raised $278 million in a series F funding round led by Greenoaks with participation from Altimeter, BOND, Benchmark, Coatue, FirstMark, GV, Index Ventures, J.P. Morgan, Lone Pine Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Tiger Global. The startup was valued at a valuation of $5 billion post this round.

The funding has enabled Cockroach Labs to continue investing in the development of CockroachDB, expand its team, and grow its customer base. The company has also used some of the funding to acquire other companies and technologies that complement its product offerings.

Also Read: Data Management Made Easy: How Airtable is Changing the Game

Future of Cockroach Labs

Cockroach Labs has a promising future, as it continues to grow its customer base, expand its product offerings, and advance the development of its distributed SQL database system, CockroachDB. Here are a few key areas where the company is focused on for the future:

Continued growth and expansion: Cockroach Labs has already achieved significant growth, with a customer base that includes some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies. The company will continue to focus on expanding its reach and growing its customer base, both in the US and internationally.

Advancing CockroachDB: CockroachDB is a powerful and flexible distributed SQL database system that is well-suited to a range of use cases, from mission-critical applications to cloud-native microservices. The company will continue to invest in the development of CockroachDB, adding new features and capabilities to make it even more useful and effective for customers.

New product offerings: In addition to CockroachDB, Cockroach Labs has already introduced a range of related products and services, such as CockroachCloud and CockroachDB Enterprise. The company will continue to explore new product offerings that can help customers manage their data more effectively and efficiently.

Investment in open source: Cockroach Labs is committed to the open-source community, and will continue to invest in the development and support of open-source software projects. The company sees open source as a critical component of its strategy, as it allows developers to build on top of CockroachDB and create new applications and services that extend its functionality.

Continued innovation: Finally, Cockroach Labs will continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with distributed databases. The company has a strong culture of innovation and a team of talented engineers and developers who are always looking for new and better ways to help customers manage their data. By staying at the forefront of innovation, Cockroach Labs will remain a leader in the database market for years to come.

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