MariaDB plc, a company that commercializes the open-source relational database of the same name, has received takeover interest from K1 Investment Management.

The software maker disclosed the development today. MariaDB has received a so-called unsolicited nonbinding indicative proposal from K1 that it says may not necessarily lead to an acquisition offer. According to the company, K1 is required to submit an offer by March 29 or withdraw the proposal.

The investment firm is proposing to take MariaDB private for 55 cents a share, which amounts to a 189% premium over its last unaffected stock price. Such an offer would reportedly value the software maker at about $37 million. MariaDB previously received a slightly higher tentative offer of 56 cents a share from Runa Capital, but the acquisition talks didn’t lead to a sale.

Redwood City, California-based MariaDB sells a paid version of the eponymous open-source relational database. Its database distribution provides several features not available in the original version, most notably a proxy dubbed MaxScale. The proxy can automatically retry queries if they’re interrupted by an error and redirect user requests to a backup database if a company’s main MariaDB environment goes offline.

MaxScale doubles as a performance optimization tool. According to MariaDB, it can keep an application’s most frequently queried records in a high-speed cache to reduce access times. The software maker’s database distribution also offers a number of other features besides MaxScale, notably an audit tool for tracking how business information is used.

MariaDB launched in 2009 and went on to raise more than $200 million from investors. In late 2022, it went public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company at a $672 million valuation. MariaDB’s valuation declined significantly in the months that followed the listing, which prompted it to implement a series of major business changes.

The software maker made two rounds of layoffs last year that reduced its headcount by over a third. Additionally, MariaDB spun off its SkySQL unit, which sells a managed database service. The company has since also offloaded its geospatial business, which provides software for analyzing satellite imagery and related file types.

The database market has seen a significant amount of investment activity in recent quarters. The second half of 2023 saw Rockset Inc., TileDB Inc., ScyllaDB Inc. and several other database startups close eight-figure funding rounds. More recently, another market player called Qdrant raised $28 million this past January to help organizations store the information processed by their artificial intelligence models.

Image: MariaDB