Open source database provider MariaDB has announced that the European Investment Bank (EIB) is making a 25-million euro investment in the company to support its next stage of growth and database innovation. MariaDB says that the EIB operation is guaranteed under the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), a key element of the European Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe, aiming at reviving investment in strategic projects around Europe.
The funding marks EIB’s first financing for MariaDB, which provides an open source database by the same name, and is tagged for further innovation for MariaDB’s expanding global enterprise client base and increase its sales and marketing teams in Europe, America, and Asia. Specifically, within Europe, the company will expand its European operations with new engineering hires in Helsinki.
The investment from the EIB will accelerate MariaDB’s ability to expand its product capabilities, said Michael Howard, CEO of MariaDB, noting that this funding is part of a multi-step strategy to strengthen MariaDB across Europe, America and Asia, and will help foster the next phase of growth for the company.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.
The Investment Plan for Europe focuses on boosting European investments to create jobs and growth by making smarter use of new and existing financial resources, removing obstacles to investment and providing visibility and technical assistance to investment projects. The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) is the central pillar of the Investment Plan. It provides a first loss guarantee, allowing the EIB to invest in more, often riskier, projects.
MariaDB Corporation is the company behind MariaDB, an open source database. According to MariaDB, it is the default in major Linux distributions like Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE, and over the past year, the company expanded its product portfolio to include MariaDB MaxScale and MariaDB ColumnStore.