The world just can’t seem to get enough of MongoDB, the popular NoSQL database. On Monday afternoon, its primary commercial developer 10gen announced a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the U.S. intelligence community. Terms of the deal were undisclosed, although they do include a technology development deal as well as the capital investment.
If you’re keeping track, the In-Q-Tel investment adds to the $ 73 million 10gen has already raised, including a $ 42 million round that closed last May. The company is in such demand because its product, the open source MongoDB, is very popular with developers building applications that utilize a NoSQL database rather than, or in addition to, a traditional relational database such as MySQL. Seemingly everyone — from one-man shops to Foursquare to Disney — uses MongoDB, primarily as a part of their web application architectures or as the database layer in their big data stacks.
Still, MongoDB is not without its detractors. Although developers tend to love its API and its functionality in small deployments, they’re not always so keen on managing MongoDB environments once they begin to grow or when performance becomes a make-or-break issue. With its recent influx of cash, however, 10gen has vowed to keep working on its product’s shortcomings as it also grows its business.
As for In-Q-Tel, this is just the latest in a series of investments related, however loosely, to the big data trend. The firm’s other data-based investments include Cloudera, Platfora, Digital Reasoning, Recorded Future and Palantir Technologies.
Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user Elnur.
