Cockroach Labs

Cockroach Labs develops CockroachDB, a distributed SQL database that is wire compatible with PostgreSQL and replicates data across machines, data centers and cloud regions so that it keeps running and stays transactionally consistent when parts of the infrastructure fail. It sells self-hosted enterprise licenses and a managed cloud service to banks, payment networks and other operators of systems that cannot go down. Former Google engineers Spencer Kimball (CEO), Peter Mattis (CTO) and Ben Darnell founded the company in 2015 after Kimball published the first design on GitHub in 2014. It is headquartered in New York, with offices in Austin, Bangalore, London and Toronto. In 2019 it moved CockroachDB from the Apache 2.0 license to the Business Source License.

Benchmark led a $6.3 million seed round in 2015, with GV, Sequoia Capital and FirstMark Capital participating. After a Series A, Redpoint led a $27 million Series B in May 2017 with Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures and FirstMark. Altimeter Capital and Tiger Global led a $55 million Series C in August 2019 with GV, Benchmark, Index, Redpoint, FirstMark and Work-Bench, taking total funding past $110 million. Altimeter and Bond co-led an $86.6 million Series D in May 2020. Altimeter then led a $160 million Series E in January 2021 at a $2 billion valuation, adding Greenoaks and Lone Pine Capital. In December 2021 Greenoaks led a $278 million Series F at a $5 billion valuation, with Altimeter, Bond, Benchmark, Coatue, FirstMark, GV, Index Ventures, J.P. Morgan, Lone Pine Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Tiger Global.

Cockroach Labs remains private and reports $633 million raised in total. At the Series F it said it had 200 paying customers, that its cloud business had grown 500% over the prior year, and that annual recurring revenue had tripled year over year. Revenue more than doubled in 2020. Kimball said in 2021 that he expected an eventual IPO but has not set a date, and the company has not announced a priced round since.

The company illustrates the open source infrastructure path in venture. Benchmark, GV, Sequoia and FirstMark backed a GitHub project before it had a business plan, and the round sizes grew from $6.3 million to $278 million over six years as crossover investors such as Altimeter, Tiger Global, Greenoaks and Lone Pine entered. More than $550 million of the total came in three rounds between May 2020 and December 2021. Five years after the Series F, those late entries have no liquidity event to mark against.