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MapR Funding Quiets Big Data, Hadoop Skeptics

MapR CEO John Schroeder
John Schroeder

MapR Technologies has confirmed $50 million in new equity financing and another "consecutive record quarter" -- which I assume points to revenues and bookings. MapR also remains on the road to an IPO. The bold statements attempt to distance the big data software provider away from Hortonworks, a Hadoop specialist that announced disappointing financial results last week.

“This new funding strengthens our balance sheet as we look ahead to an initial public offering,” said CEO John Schroeder.

The $50 million equity financing was led by Future Fund, with participation from all existing investors, including: Google Capital, Lightspeed Venture PartnersMayfield FundNew Enterprise Associates, Qualcomm Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures. MapR has now raised $194 million in equity funding to date.

MapR Momentum

For its Q2 2016, MapR's bookings grew more than 100 percent vs. the Q2 in 2015, the company says. More than a Hadoop-centric story at this point, licenses and support agreements for the MapR Converged Data Platform represented 90 percent of total bookings, the company says. New and expanded customers in Q2 include American Express, Audi, Ericsson, JLL, Mizuho Bank, NTT, Philips, Qualcomm, and Rubicon Project.

Moreover, the company says it has a 99 percent customer retention rate -- a particularly important statistics as customers weigh a lengthy list of Hadoop and big data software options.

MapR has made multiple hires in the past year to bolster its executive suite and its channel partner program leadership.

MapR Reality Check

Although the company's momentum sounds legitimate, there are still some wildcards that are unknown to the public. For instance, MapR is privately held so actual revenues and profits/losses aren't publicly disclosed. Also, I don't know if the current $50 million funding round was an "up round" or a "down round" in terms of MapR's overall valuation.

Still, the funding news comes at a particularly opportune time. Rival Hortonworks last week announced disappointing earnings -- which prompted some skeptics to wonder if the overall big data and Hadoop markets were suffering from slowing growth. MapR's announcement seems to mitigate those concerns.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.