Database startup SingleStore Inc. today announced that it has secured a $116 million investment led by Goldman Sachs, giving it a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The investment is an extension to a $80 million Series F funding round that SingleStore announced last year. Goldman Sachs was joined by more than a half-dozen other backers, including Insight Partners, which led last year’s $80 million round. Overall, the company has raised $278 million from investors over the past 20 months.

SingleStore provides a relational database used by General Electric Co., Dell Technologies Inc. and a long list of other major enterprises. The database’s core selling point is its ability to perform tasks that usually can be carried out only with multiple software products. By replacing multiple software products with a single platform, SingleStore promises to simplify its customers’ information technology operations.

The applications that an enterprise runs in its database environment can be divided into two main categories: transactional workloads and analytical workloads. Companies usually need to use a separate database for each workload type. SingleStore, in contrast, says its platform can support both transactional and analytics use cases, thereby removing the need to use multiple software products.

Transactional workloads are applications that require the ability to quickly retrieve specific database entries or add new ones. An inventory tracking system, for example, requires the ability to retrieve product availability information quickly from a company’s product database.

Analytical workloads are applications that extract insights from a company’s business data. Such applications process information differently than transactional workloads. They require the ability to scan a large amount of database records for insights and, in some cases, must also perform calculations on the retrieved information.

The different technical requirements of transactional and analytical applications are the reason that companies usually run the two workload types on two separate databases. By removing the need for that, SingleStore says, its platform simplifies customers’ IT operations. A company’s developers can build both transactional and analytics workloads on its database instead of using multiple products, which eases their work.

The company says another benefit of its approach is increased performance. When a company uses separate databases for transactional and analytical workloads, it often has to sync records between the databases to ensure information consistency, which takes time. SingleStore removes the need to sync information and thereby saves time, which speeds up data processing.

SingleStore’s value proposition of replacing multiple software products with a single, simpler platform extends beyond databases. 

Before a company can extract insights from its information, the information has to be moved to a centralized data processing environment. This is usually done with the help of standalone ETL or extract, transform and load tools. SingleStore offers built-in ETL features that remove the need to use a standalone tool to move records to its database.

SingleStore’s technology is gaining significant traction in the enterprise. Last September, the company disclosed that its cloud revenue had increased by more than 150% over the preceding 12 months. It has more than doubled its headcount, to about 400 employees, over the past year to support business growth.

In conjunction with its funding announcement today, the startup said that it has appointed longtime technology executive Brad Kinnish chief financial officer. Kinnish previously held the same role at networking startup Aryaka Networks Inc. and Marin Software Inc., a publicly traded advertising technology provider.

“This additional funding is further validation that we’re set to lead as the only true primary high-performant database that brings together transactions and analytics, allowing developers and data architects to deliver exceptional real-time results through their applications,” said SingleStore Chief Executive Officer Raj Verma. He added that the addition of Kinnish “will be vital in our public readiness plans.”

Image: SingleStore