The disruption in the database market is fully apparent today with the news that 10Gen has received $42 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates and existing investors.

10Gen develops MongoDB, the open-source NOSQL database. It provides a subscription service, support and training for the fast growing database technology.

The investment marks a new chapter for the growing demand for database technology better suited to the demands that comes with new data workload demands. Relational databes are increasingly viewed as unfitting for the new world of big data due to the complexity, for instance, in making schema changes.

That’s the problem experienced by Craigslist when it came time to update its archive technology. It took considerable time for each schema change, essentially killing the ability to update.

10Gen President Max Schireson said the company will use the investment to focus on research and development and the build out of product features.

10Gen now has 500 customers, Schireson said. That’s up from about 150 to 200 customers at this time last year.  Sales have grown 50% quater over quarter.

10Gen President Max Schireson said a few factors account for the growth. MongoDB has matured. The 1.8 release one year ago represented the first minimally viable database for suited for mainstream use.

Foursqaure, Ebay and Shutterfly represent early adopters but the enterprise is showing  demand now, too. Walt Disney and Viacom, for instance, have adopted MongoDB.

And customers find it easier to use than relational databases for projects that require significant scalability.  For example, a telecommunications company used MongoDB to develop an online mobile location service. It worked out so well that they decided to use it to get a catalog updating project back on track.

Schireson said the new finding will go primarily toward making MongoDB more technically rich. That will give 10Gen the ability to compete more effectively by providing the services that enterprise customers demand.