Database software provider MongoDB has filed with the SEC to go public and seeks to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. Underwriters include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Allen & Co., and others, according to the filing.
Describing its platform architecture in the SEC filing, MongoDB said its “Nexus Architecture” combines “the best of both relational and non-relational databases.” Its primary subscription package is MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, which can be run in the cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid environment, and the company also offers MongoDB Atlas, a cloud hosted database-as-a-service, or DBaaS. Its Community Server offering has been downloaded by a “large and growing community of highly engaged developers,” more than 30 million times from its website alone since February 2009, it says. In June, the company also rolled out MongoDB Stitch, a service to make it easier for developers to integrate the services they need to build applications.
Commenting on its position in the database market in the SEC filing, MongoDB also stated, “Based on DB-Engines' rankings, we have been the leading modern database by popularity worldwide since 2013," and explained, "When we refer to a modern database, we are referring to a database that was originally commercialized after the year 2000 and that is designed for globally distributed deployments.”
Reflecting on the history of the database provider MongoDB in a recent MongoDB Matters column on the DBTA website, Guy Harrison, who is a MongoDB-certified DBA and director/CTO of Southbank Software, noted:
“MongoDB was developed by startup 10gen, which was attempting to build a PaaS cloud. MongoDB represented the database element of that cloud, and in 2009 10gen decided to abandon the PaaS product and concentrate exclusively on this new database." Harrison said, "Almost immediately, MongoDB showed greater adoption than other contemporary NoSQL systems, many of whom had apparently more sophisticated internal architectures. The secret of MongoDB’s success can be found in the immortal words of ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: ‘developers, developers, developers.’ While other aspiring database vendors attempted to woo the DBA or CIO, MongoDB focused almost exclusively on developers—doing everything in its power to make it easy for developers to adopt the platform.”
Ramin Sayar, CEO of MongoDB partner, Sumo Logic, commented on the filing to go public: “When you compare the tech IPO market over the last few years, 2017 has been a strong one for startups, and it is indicative of a larger shift in the industry—particularly with regards to cloud technology. Now more than ever, the shift to the cloud and industry-wide adoption of other emerging technologies has created an opening for companies like MongoDB to move beyond legacy companies and databases and capitalize on the complex and evolving requirements of business applications. We have passed traditional IT and entered into a new age of connectivity where business and technology are inseparable, and old-guard companies cannot keep up. We need to bring continuous automation, intelligence and analytics to every part of the development cycle to understand our customers and the evolving trends of business applications.”
MongoDB has been in a leadership position in the NoSQL world and it is leveraging the opportunity to go public very effectively to actually allow it to further scale the offering, added Ronen Schwartz, SVP & GM of Data Integration and Cloud Integration at Informatica. "It is really exciting and a good thing for comapnies that are focused on data, and great evidence of the core importance of data - and in this case big data - inside organizations," Schwartz added.
Key tech IPOs this year have included Cloudera, a provider of a platform for machine learning and advanced analytics built on open source technologies including Hadoop, as well as Alteryx, a provider of self-service data analytics software, and MuleSoft, which provides an integration platform that enables customers to build cloud-native application networks through API-led connectivity.