New name, sharp focus on Trove for startup Tesora
Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal
Tesora is the Italian word for treasure. And by adopting that new name last month, the Cambridge-based startup formerly named ParElastic intends to reflect its strategic shift to support Trove, the database as a service component of OpenStack, the massive open source cloud-computing infrastructure project.
OpenStack
is widely adopted and supported by 1,200 developers from more than 60
companies, including many IT titans such as Oracle,
IBM
and
Hewlett-Packard.
“It’s
growing like wildfire, really,” founder and CEO Ken
Rugg said
of OpenStack. “It’s the fastest-growing open source project ever.
We saw great opportunity to get aligned with that.”
Tesora,
founded in 2010 and now staffed with 15 employees (with additional
offices in Ontario) initially developed what it dubbed a “Database
Virtualization Engine” that gives developers the ability to quickly
scale resources up and down as needed in the cloud.
“We
were very impressed with the distance it had come,” Rugg said of
Trove. “We thought this was a great fit for us to come in, make it
very easy to use, create a scalable, enterprise-class product that
you could quickly install.”
The
decision comes as the market appears to be poised for significant
adoption of database as a service. According to a report by 451
Research, annual revenue from providers is projected to rise from
$626 million in 2014 to roughly $1.8 billion in 2016. By contrast,
revenue from providers was $150 million in 2012.
According
to the report, demand is being driven by increased confidence in the
cloud, a wider variety of providers, and a lower barrier to entry due
to falling prices. Likewise, database as a service is a strong force
behind the adoption of next-generation databases.
“We
have deep database expertise, and at the same time we have this
vision that the way people consume databases is going to change,”
said Rugg.
Michael
Coté,
research director of infrastructure software at 451 Research, said
database as a service remains “a relatively small slice of the IT
market,” but also acknowledged that databases are “a vital part
of most every application.”
OpenStack,
for its part, welcomes a variety of contributors, he said, including
individuals and smaller companies alongside giants like Oracle.
“OpenStack as a community is pretty good, no matter what sized
company you are,” said Coté.
Tesora
is not yet releasing revenue figures or customer names, although Rugg
said it is working with a number of entities, with announcements
forthcoming. As it evolves, the company plans to derive its revenues
through offering service and support around Trove, Rugg said. It will
continue to offer its database virtualization engine, and will also
eventually offer its own version of Trove with various add-ons, he
said.
The
goal is to essentially follow the pay-as-you-go model, and “change
the way people get capacity,” Rugg said, “making it more like a
utility.”
The
company, which initially launched in Waltham, is backed by a total of
$8.7 million in funding, most recently from a Series A round of $5.7
million in April 2013 led by General Catalyst Partners, and also
including Point Judith Capital, CommonAngels, LaunchCapital, and
other angels.
Original story link.
© 2014 American City Business Journals
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