Brothers Tobie Morgan Hitchcock and Jaime Morgan Hitchcock spent years constructing cloud-based software-as-a-service techniques collectively, starting from instruments to let golf programs measure “golfer engagement” to on-line platforms designed to evaluate job candidates. Whereas the techniques they constructed had wildly totally different capabilities, the unifying thread working via all of them was a dependence on databases that might enable the techniques to develop whereas remaining performant.
Managing databases isn’t as difficult because it was. However at scale, it may be a distinct story — and Tobie says he and Jaime skilled lots of the frequent ache factors firsthand whereas constructing out SaaS techniques.
“Developers spend excessive time on infrastructure management and ensuring that the data in their applications is consistent across multiple different databases and system types with different characteristics and guarantees,” Tobie informed TechCrunch. “In addition to this, they need to learn new programming and query languages while working with many different client libraries, leaving less time for application development and leading to reduced performance and more complex application deployments.”
The Hitchcock brothers’ answer was a database structure referred to as SurrealDB, maintained by a startup of the identical title Tobie and Jaime co-founded in 2015. (We lined SurrealDB’s seed in January 2023.) SurrealDB permits builders to mannequin information utilizing a number of totally different information fashions without delay, and to deploy databases throughout each cloud and on-premises environments.
“As a multi-model database, SurrealDB helps organizations looking to consolidate the numbers of databases they own and manage,” Tobie mentioned. “We believe that an important part of each database is the ability to easily and effortlessly control each aspect of the database.”
The database structure SurrealDB, which was constructed within the programming language Rust, shares sure traits in frequent with relational databases. Nevertheless it options added performance like safety controls and granular entry permissions administration.
SurrealDB additionally ships with a instrument, Surrealist, that lets builders carry out sure database administration duties visually, with out having to put in writing code.
SurrealDB the corporate is presently pre-revenue. Nonetheless, the plan is to generate profits via Surreal Cloud, a totally managed model of SurrealDB that launched in beta early this month.
VCs think about the brothers’ roadmap. SurrealDB this week closed a $20 million funding spherical led by FirstMark and Georgian, with participation from Crew Capital and Alumni Ventures, bringing the 32-person, London-based startup’s whole raised to $26 million.
Tobie says that the proceeds will go towards product improvement and “sustainable” hiring.
“SurrealDB has emerged as the choice for organizations burdened by the cost of managing multiple databases,” Tobie added optimistically. “With organizations looking to reduce the cost of the tech stacks, we see this as an opportunity for SurrealDB.”
