TerminusDB, a Trinity College Dublin spinout that has developed an open-source collaboration platform for large and complex data, has raised €3.6 million in seed funding.
The software, designed for collaboratively building data-intensive applications and knowledge graphs, allows different teams to work on multiple versions of the same asset at the same time in a controlled way without the risk of data loss.
Terminus DB was founded in 2019 by Kevin Feeney and Gavin Mendel-Gleason, and was originally called DataChemist. It will use the funding to accelerate development of the technology. The company intends to double employee numbers to more than 20 people.
The round was led by Belgian VC Volta Ventures with participation by Seattle-based Acequia Capital, which is led by a number of former Microsoft senior executives. Existing investors Atlantic Bridge University Bridge Fund and Enterprise Ireland also participated.
The company’s solution is free and has been downloaded more than 150,000 times. Last year the start-up launched a second subscription product, TerminusHub, which is proving successful.
‘Leading platform’
Sander Vonk of Volta Ventures said he was excited about the wide commercial applications of the technology developed by the start-up.
“We think TerminusDB has the potential to become the leading platform in the next generation of data architecture,” he said.
The company's founders previously secured a €4 million European Commission Horizon 2020 grant to build the technical architecture behind the Global History Databank, an international scientific research project to track long-term trends in conflict.
Luke Feeney, commercial and operations lead at TerminusDB, said financial services companies, which are interested in the lineage of data, as well as firms in heavily regulated sectors, were among its users.
“What we want to do now is open up the technology and make it more general purpose so as to open it up to a broader range of technical users who might want to use it for various purposes,” he said.
“We are looking to accelerate growth by focusing more on the enterprise space, which will mean we’ll likely be looking for more external funding soon. There is definitely potential to grow very big,” Mr Feeney added.
