Open-Source - new way of life in enterprise world

By Vivek | May 22nd, 2007 at 04:34 pm ET         

Is open source the way of life in enterprise product development? Atleast that is the direction all the recent funding news indicates towards. After all, everyone has RedHat and Jboss to look upto. Besides that, startups don’t really have the resources to penetrate the well entrenched enterprise app market unless they can lure the companies by being open. Anyway, below is a quick review of recent investments in the open-source space. Although the list is nowhere near being exhaustive, it does tell about the times to come-

MuleSource: The San Francisco based startup has raised $12.5 million in its Series B round. MuleSource had raised $4 million in October last year. The startup operates in the SOA space.

Zmanda: The Sunnyvale based startup today announced that is has raised $8 million in its Series B funding from Helion Venture, BlueRun Ventures and Canaan Partners. Earlier the startup had raised $5 million. Zmanda develops open-source data backup and recovery solutions.

SnapLogic: I wrote about SnapLogic earlier today. The startup has raised $2.5 million in funding for it’s open-source SOA type data integration service.

Interface21: Raised $10 million from Benchmark Capital earlier this month. Developer of Java based Spring Framework.  

GroundWork: The San Francisco based startup raised $12.5 million in Series C round in February. Investors include JAFCO Ventures, SAP Ventures, Canaan Partners and Mayfield Fund. The startup operates in open source systems and network management space.

GreenPlum: The San Mateo based startup raised $15 million in funding from Sierra Ventures, Mission Ventures, Dawntreader Ventures and EDF Ventures earlier this year. The startup operates in the open-source database space with a foundations in PostgreSQL database.

EnterpriseDB: The Iselin, NJ startup raised $20 million in debt and equity in a Series B round last year. Investors at the company include Charles River Ventures, Valhalla Partners, Sony Online Entertainment and Fidelity Ventures. This is another startup offering a product built on top of PostgreSQL database

MySql: The open-source database company has till date raised $39 million with the last funding round being in 2006 when it raised $18.5 million. Investors include Intel Capital, Red Hat, SAP Ventures, and Presidio STX. MySql is presently working towards an IPO.

Palamida: The  startup raised $8M in funding from Mitsui Venture Partners, Hummer Winblad and Walden VC for it’s second round of funding. Palamida develops software the identifies, tracks and manages risk stemming from third-party code that comprises today’s software applications.

Zenoss: The startup operating in the IT monitoring space has till date raised $4.8 million from Boulder Ventures and Intersouth Partners.

Digium: The open-source telephony software developer has till date raised $13.8 million in funding from Matrix Partners.

Vyatta: The open-source router developer has till date raised $18.5 million in funding. The last funding round for Vyatta was in April when it raised $11 million, led by Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC).

rPath: The Raleigh, North Carolina based startup raised $6.4m in funding. Investors include North Bridge Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners, and Wakefield Group. rPath follows a software appliance approach for application distribution and management.

SugarCRM: The open-source CRM software developer last raised $18.77 million in Series C funding in 2005. Investors at the startup include - New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Walden International

Laszlo: The open-source RIA platform provider had raised $8 Million in the Series C funding round lead by WI Harper Group last year. Coghead is using Laszlo to power it’s software marketplace.

Zend: The php company had raised $20 million last year in it’s series D funding round led by Greylock Partners.