Unicorn of the Nordics, Aiven, Raises $60M for Its Open-Source Cloud Data Offering

Helsinki, Finland-based provider of open-source based managed cloud data infrastructure, Aiven, has announced a $60 million Series C extension at a $2 billion valuation. This brings Aiven’s bringing total Series C round to $160 million and the company’s total funding to date to $210 million.

Aiven, the Nordics’ newest unicorn, is generating revenue at a growth rate of over 100% year-on-year and plans to keep accelerating its growth on its way to being a worldwide category leader in managed cloud data infrastructure. Aiven now employs over 230 people around the globe, including offices in Helsinki, Berlin, Boston, Toronto, and Sydney. Following the funding, Aiven plans to build an office in Singapore to extend its presence in the Asia-Pacific area.

Existing investors World Innovation Lab and IVP co-led the round, which also included Atomico and others. A number of investors raised their financial commitments to Aiven just seven months after the company’s successful $100 million Series C round, demonstrating the company’s growth and potential.

“This is an exciting step for Aiven on our journey and indicates that our team is successfully delivering on our mission to champion open source and make the lives of developers better in all that we do,” said Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO and co-founder at Aiven. “The additional funding from our existing investors will allow us to rapidly expand our global footprint, significantly contribute to the open-source community and support the growth of other tech startups.”

Launching a Startup Program

Photo Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO and co-founder at Aiven
“The additional funding from our existing investors will allow us to rapidly expand our global footprint, significantly contribute to the open-source community and support the growth of other tech startups,” said Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO and co-founder at Aiven.

Aiven’s open-source investment continues with the introduction of its recently created open-source program office, which is entirely focused on contributing to projects that are important to Aiven’s customers. In December, Aiven will begin its own startup program to encourage talented entrepreneurs. Participants in the program will get free access to Aiven’s expertise and data platform for a year.

“Aiven has grown rapidly and become an emerging leader in the large, fast-growing data cloud market,” said Tsune Shirota, Partner at World Innovation Lab. “Aiven’s expertise in open source and cloud is deeply resonating with customers, as seen by its quickly growing and diverse customer base of over 700 companies in over 50 countries. We are excited to significantly increase our commitment and look forward to supporting Aiven’s growth and its effort to drive further innovation in the data cloud.”

Apache Kafka, Cassandra, OpenSearch

“IVP originally invested in Aiven in January of 2020 behind a belief that the company’s outstanding product and platform would enable companies of all sizes to manage their exploding data needs easily and efficiently,” said Eric Liaw, General Partner at IVP. “Under Oskari’s leadership, the Aiven team is delivering tremendous value for their customers, and the proof is that the company has more than quadrupled since our original investment and growth is accelerating.”

Businesses can have a contemporary, fully functional open-source data infrastructure in minutes with Aiven’s fully managed cloud data services for major open-source projects like Apache Kafka and Cassandra, OpenSearch, M3, PostgreSQL, and more in the public cloud. According to a recent IDC whitepaper, organizations who use Aiven’s services get a 340 percent return on investment over three years due to lower open-source solution costs, better development team productivity, and increased revenue due to increased agility and scalability.