Cockroach Labs was founded in 2015 by Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis and Ben Darnell. The three previously worked at Google, and developed Viewfinder, a photo-sharing platform acquired by Square in 2013. CockroachDB 1.0 was released in May 2017.
CockroachDB
As the name implies, the aim behind Cockroach DB is to be hard to kill. The database wants to emulate the cockroaches staying power through replication and distribution. CockroachDB is distributed across geographically diverse data centers to increase resilience.
Geographic distribution
The geographically distributed database supports multi-master capability, giving databases the ability to read and write data on a local replica without having to access a central master. Replication in this manner protects the database from downtime, lost data and increases availability.
Open-sourcing
Cockroach Labs launched Cockroach DB as open source software with their code under Apache License version 2. They launched a managed service with gated features under an enterprise license. In 2019, in response to a rise in well-positioned companies integrating open-sourced software, Cockroach Labs changed their licensing terms to prohibit anyone from offering a commercial version of CockroachDB without a license.
Compliance
The geographically distributed database could increase local compliance over data privacy and data localization concerns.
Funding
Series A
In June 2015 Cockroach Labs announced a funding of $6.25 million. The round, led by Benchmark – whose Peter Fenton joined Cockroach Labs board– included Techammer, Sequoia Capital, Moisey Uretsky, GV, Florian Leibert and FirstMark Capital.
Series A1
In March 2016 Cockroach Labs raised $20 million. Index Ventures led the round which included Benchmark, FirstMark Capital, GV and Work-Bench.
Series B
In May 2017 Cockroach Labs raised $27 million. Redpoint led the round, which included Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures and FirstMark Capital.
Series C
In August 2019 Cockroach Labs raised $55 million. Altimeter Capital, Tiger Global Management and GV led the round, which included Benchmark, Index Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Redpoint and Work-Bench.
Timeline
Cockroach Labs scores $86.6M Series D funding round. Altimeter Capital and Bond co-led the round with participation from Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Capital and FirstMark Capital.
Cockroach Labs raises $55 Million Series C
Cockroach Labs announces it raised $55 million in a Series C round co-led by Altimeter Capital, Tiger Global, and GV.
Prior to this round, the company had raised $53.5 million across two roughly equally-sized Series A and Series B rounds.
Its Series C round effectively doubles the venture capital Cockroach Labs has raised to date, to $108.5 million.
Cockroach Labs announces $27M Series B and enterprise tier for its reliable database
Today's $27 million Series B is being led by Redpoint with participation from Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures and FirstMark.
Cofounder and CEO Spencer Kimball spoke with AlleyWatch about their latest round of funding and gave us the insider info on what their name is about.
Cockroach Labs, the startup behind an open source database called CockroachDB, announced today that Benchmark has led the startup's first round of funding, a series A totaling $6.25 million.
Funding rounds
People
Aayush Shah
Software Engineering Intern
Aditya Maru
Backend Engineering Intern
Alfonso Subiotto Marqués
Member of Technical Staff
Amruta Ranade
Senior Technical Writer
Andrei Matei
Member of Technical Staff
Andrew Deally
Sales Engineer
Andrew Kryczka
Member of Technical Staff
Andrew Werner
Member of Technical Staff
Andy Kimball
Member of Technical Staff
Andy Woods
Product Manager
Anne Birzin
Staff Product Designer
Armen Kopoyan
GM, International Sales
Arul Ajmani
Software Engineering Intern
Becca Taft
Member of Technical Staff
Ben Mangum
Account Executive
Benjamin Darnell
Co-Founder & Chief Architect
Bilal Akhtar
Member of Technical Staff
Bob Vawter
Member of Technical Staff
Bram Gruneir
Technical Account Manager
Brian Jackson
Senior Director, Sales Operations
Carlo Ruiz
Member of Technical Staff
Carolyn Parrish
Sales Development Representative
Celia La
Member of Technical Staff
Champa Lo
Senior Creative Designer
Charles Sutton
Account Executive
Further reading
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
CockroachDB: The SQL Database for Global Cloud Services
October 10, 2017
