Tembo Data Systems Inc., operator of a PostgreSQL managed service, today said it closed a $14 million Series A funding round that brings its total financing to $20.5 million.

The company says it’s developer-focused, meaning it wants to simplify the task of installing and managing PostgreSQL as well as the more than 200 extensions in its ecosystem. Tembo’s strategy is to make as many extensions as possible available using a package manager and registry it built called Trunk.

The company said its service is distinguished by a commitment to open-source software. “As open-source purists, we believe that further developing the open-source ecosystem around Postgres is critical, and we’re focusing much of our energy on making sure our users and customers can leverage the entire Postgres open-source ecosystem from within our products,” a spokesman said in response to a written question.

Tembo raised a seed funding round last December. The Cincinnati-based company’s founder, Ry Walker, previously raised more than $280 million for a data orchestration startup called Astronomer Inc. He started Tembo to challenge what he said are lock-in strategies used by other PostgreSQL managed services that limit developer flexibility and options for continuous integration, which is a core part of the DevOps agile development methodology.

Loved by developers

PostgreSQL is one of the most widely used database management systems. Stack Overflow Internet Services Inc.’s annual survey last year named it the most admired, desired and popular database. SolidIT Consulting & Software Development GmbH’s DB-Engines site ranks it the fourth most popular DBMS.

But PostgreSQL is complex, particularly when extensions are involved, Walker wrote in a Medium post a year ago. “To create a self-managed cluster of Postgres clusters, [database administrators] have to consider infrastructure, environment, security, data management, backups and workload-specific tuning,” he wrote. “Further, maintaining and scaling Postgres involves meeting high availability requirements, managing data storage, updating schemas, optimizing query performance, and managing failover protection and caching.”

The company said the average enterprise uses seven different database vendors, creating complexity and sprawl. It also criticized what it called weak support levels from managed service providers that would rather sell services based on costlier proprietary databases.

Simpler to use

Tembo aims to simplify Postgres deployment with a virtualized runtime experience, one-click migrations and access to the largest Postgres ecosystem. It also integrates a machine learning workflow that can be reused to develop large language model solutions like the open-source RAGStack and Tembo’s VectorDB Stack and Tembo AI.

Its consumption-based pricing model includes more than 200 extensions and a free “hobby tier” typically used for personal projects.

“Developers can control the data model lifecycle and deploy to multiple zones and clouds,” Walker wrote on Medium. “Advanced options will include autoscaling, hybrid transactional and analytical processing and edge caching.” A feature called Stacks enables developers to quickly create and deploy custom-built combinations of PostgreSQL and extensions.

Tembo said it will use the new capital to fund new hires, advertising, product development and developer relations. Recent new hires bring experience from Microsoft Corp., EnterpriseDB Corp., Astronomer and Snowflake Inc.

“In the same way that Oracle transformed databases and the cloud, Tembo is poised to change our understanding of what Postgres can do,” GreatPoint Ventures Managing Partner Ray Lane said in a statement. Lane was previously president of database giant Oracle Corp.

GreatPoint Ventures led the investment, which was joined by Venrock Management, Grand Ventures, Wireframe Management, Defined Capital, Cintrifuse Early Stage Capital Fund and angel investors.

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