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Who followed his fate MySQL and MariaDB These last 15 years will probably remember SkySQL, which once existed in that database ecosystem and became a brand a year ago. independent company one more time.
That company announced today that it has raised its first external funding — a $6.6 million seed round — with ambitions to use it to bring conversational artificial intelligence to databases.
MySQL, for the uninitiated, is a popular relational database management system (RDMS) created by Michael.MontyWidenius, David Axmarkand Allan Larsson in the mid-90s. The trading company behind the project was later sold to Sun Microsystems 1 billion in 2008Sun Microsystems itself was taken over by Oracle for $7 billionAn operation that prompted Widenius to merge MySQL and create MariaDB to ensure it remains an independent, community-driven effort.
Subsequently, Widenius created two organizations: SkySQL, a commercial entity that sells services for MySQL; and the Monty Program about supporting MariaDB.
These two businesses merged In 2013 with a combined outfit rebranding as MariaDB Corporation and has raised close to $230 million in funding. MariaDB resurrected via the SkySQL brand in 2020 a new cloud database productbut after struggling with life as a public company (read more about that story is here), MariaDB Released SkySQL last year as a freelancer, he led the product development team at MariaDB.
Although MariaDB retained an equity stake in the spin-off, the responsibility was overwhelming. SkySQL make your own way. And that’s why today the startup announced a new cash injection as it looks to bring AI into the database mix.
The startup’s $6.6 million in seed funding includes participation from a well-known seed-stage investor Eniac Ventureshas previously invested in companies such as Airbnb and Reddit Good Equity and WTI.
AI factor
Enterprises typically use SkySQL to reduce the hassles and complexities of running MariaDB—a fully managed cloud product that automates provisioning and scaling with features that address security, compliance, and disaster recovery. SkySQL after exiting MariaDB last year Microsoft has added Azure supportmeaning it is truly multi-cloud as it already supports deployments on AWS and Google Cloud Platform.
However, the company is now trying to adapt to the emerging AI revolution and address one of the biggest problems it says exists in today’s databases, which is that they are not optimized for AI.
So SkySQL now offers a duo of AI products, including something it calls “semantic agents” that serve up insights into operational data. In this way, SkySQL customers can effectively build and embed their own AI agents into their applications, allowing their users to ask natural language questions about their data stored in SkySQL – something that can be difficult in an enterprise setting due to security and compliance issues associated with transporting sensitive items. surrounding information, the so-called ” not to mention the problems that have been around for a long timehallucinations.”
SkySQL keeps everything on the platform, while semi-autonomous agents also support human input in the loop to refine the output and improve it over time.
Elsewhere, SkySQL is also debuting SkyCopilot, essentially an AI assistant that can help database administrators optimize database performance, troubleshoot issues, and “manage routine tasks” through natural language queries. It could be something like this”please give me a report summarizing the health of my server” or “identify slow-executing database queries.”
So, in fact, SkySQL positions itself as much more than a database company, it’s all about combining various integral AI components, e.g. vector database and large language models (LLM) into a single API that allows users to retrieve natural language answers without transferring their data.
The founding team
The founding team of SkySQL includes the CEO Nithin Rao (pictured above) he built a vehicle connectivity platform called Autonomic Sold back to Ford in 2021. He later launched an AI analytics startup called Definitive Intelligence Acquired by AI chip company Grog this past March, though Rao had left for SkySQL by then.
“SkySQL represented a natural next step—a chance to realize the vision of being an operational data platform for modern applications, especially those using generative artificial intelligence,” Rao told TechCrunch.
Rao’s two co-founders are CTOs Jags Ramnarayan and CPO Saravana Krishnamurtiboth switched from MariaDB where they were already familiar with SkySQL. Although Rao only joined them because SkySQL was exiting MariaDB, he already knew one of the founders of a previous cloud computing company they had worked with a few years earlier.
“Jags and I first crossed paths when we were working together Mainand when the opportunity arose to spin off SkySQL, we rejoined,” said Rao. “To join forces with such a strong team and build something transformative in this space was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
