Aster raises $12M for Data Warehousing
By Azam on January 13, 2009
Aster Data Systems, which stores data for social networking has raised $12M in a second round of venture funding lead by JAFCO and existing investor participation. Aster Data Systems is attractive solution by helping companies avoid buying expensive hardware, and because the solution can be deployed relatively quickly to meet demand. Aster Data Systems combine storage system with data analytics for data warehousing solution to address the needs of the current market.
“A perfect data warehousing engine will process and leverage all the data in an enterprise,” said Tasso Argyros, CTO and Co-Founder of Aster. “That is where Aster is headed.”
“As the bar continues to be raised higher than ever for venture capital investments, investors and customers recognize the game-changing innovations of the Aster solution. We plan to aggressively grow the company so we can continue to provide the best data warehousing engine to our customers”, according to Mayank Bawa, CEO and Co-Founder of Aster.
Aster Data System offers “frontline data warehousing,” which basically means storing all of a company’s data for business analysis. Aster dubbed its system nCluster which provides an always-on, always-parallel MPP architecture because the data is spread across clusters of servers. The advantage of Aster Data Systems is the ability to run on relatively cheap hardware; it uses the In-Database MapReduce programming framework popularized by Google, which allows more detailed queries on the data; and offers “always on,” without planned or unplanned downtime.
Aster Data System has a list of high-profile customers and backers lend a lot of credibility to their solution. Primarily, MySpace uses nCluster to store and analyze all of its traffic data, which adds up to more than 100 terabytes of data spread out over a cluster of more than 100 servers. Aster says its customers now number in the double digits, and that it’s bringing in “multi-million dollars” in revenue.
“Aster Data is on track to become the gold standard in data warehousing and analytics,” said Joe Horowitz, of JAFCO Ventures. “Aster has clearly differentiated itself with their next-generation frontline data warehouse technology that capitalizes on the needs of the market today. We are excited by the opportunity to support the company and look forward to supporting its growth into the major global player in the $20 billion database market.”
Aster Data Systems has an impressive list of financial backers. The latest round was lead by JAFCO Ventures, and had existing investors Sequoia Capital, Cambrian Ventures, and First Round Capital also participating. Angel backers included David Cheriton, Rajeev Motwani, and Ron Conway, who were all early Google investors and advisers. Aster has raised a total of $22 million in funding, and competes with Teradata, Netazza, and DATAllegro.
Tags : Aster Data Systems, Data Warehousing, David Cheriton, Google, Mayank Bawa, nCluster, Rajeev Motwani, Ron Conway, sequoia capital, Tasso Argyros