FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Concurrent Closes $4 Million in Series A Funding, Appoints Gary Nakamura as CEO
New Funding and Leadership Will Accelerate Product Development and Grow Core Team
SAN FRANCISCO – March 20, 2013 – Concurrent, Inc., the enterprise Big Data application platform company, today announced it has raised $4 million in Series A funding. The investment, led by True Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners, will be used to fuel product development, grow the core team and further deliver on the company’s vision to simplify Big Data application development on Apache Hadoop™. Concurrent is also announcing the appointment of Gary Nakamura as CEO, a high-tech executive with a winning track record and more than 20 years of experience.
Corporate Milestones
- Today’s $4 million in Series A financing follows a $900,000 seed investment in August 2011.
- Launched Cascading 2.1, the most widely used and deployed application framework for building robust, enterprise Big Data applications on Hadoop.
- User downloads of Cascading have surpassed more than 75,000 per month.
- Companies including The Climate Corporation, eBay, Etsy, FlightCaster, iCrossing, Razorfish, Trulia, TeleNav andTwitter are using Cascading to streamline data processing, data filtering and workflow optimization for large volumes of unstructured and semi-structured data.
- Launched Lingual, an open source project that delivers ANSI-standard SQL technology to easily build new and integrate existing applications onto Hadoop.
- Entered into partnerships with technology leaders including, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, SpringSource, MapR, Greenplum, Karmasphere, Think Big Analytics and Scale Unlimited.
- Industry recognition includes 2012 InfoWorld Best of Open Source Software award win in the “Best Open Source Databases” category.
In conjunction with the funding news, Concurrent is pleased to welcome Gary Nakamura as CEO, effective immediately. Prior to joining Concurrent, Nakamura served as senior vice president and general manager of Terracotta, Inc., which was recently acquired by Software AG. There he led strategy, oversaw operating profit and loss, and ran business operations including sales, marketing and product management.
Founder Chris Wensel will take on a new role as CTO, where he will lead product innovation and Cascading community engagement for the company. “We are extremely excited to welcome Gary to Concurrent,” Wensel said. “His deep experience in the enterprise Big Data market will help us take the company to the next level.”
Supporting Quotes
“Our investors’ confidence in Concurrent validates our strategy and the pioneering work we have done since the launch of Cascading in 2008. This new investment will enable us to build on this foundation and accelerate our growth as we work to deliver our commercial product and grow the core team. I am excited to be joining Concurrent at such a pivotal time and look forward to driving the company’s continued growth and development.”
-Gary Nakamura, CEO, Concurrent, Inc.
“After our initial investment, we have watched Concurrent grow substantially and lead the Big Data application development market. The promise of its core technology, combined with the management team’s pedigree and Cascading’s success, continue to make this an exciting investment opportunity.”
-Puneet Agarwal, Partner, True Ventures
“Since partnering with Concurrent in 2011, we have been impressed with the widespread adoption of its technology. We believe Cascading is an important innovation and is critical to the growth and sustainability of the Big Data technologies in the enterprise. We are excited about Concurrent’s success, and this additional financing from Rembrandt is a testament to the company’s talent, technology and ability to deliver next-generation Big Data application development and management solutions to the enterprise.”
-In Sik Rhee, General Partner, Rembrandt Venture Partners
Supporting Resources
- Company: http://concurrentinc.com
- Cascading website: http://cascading.org
- Contact us: http://concurrentinc.com/contact
- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/concurrent
About Concurrent, Inc.
Concurrent, Inc. is the enterprise Big Data application platform company. Founded in 2008, Concurrent simplifies Big Data application development, deployment and management on Apache Hadoop. We are the company behind Cascading, the most widely used and deployed technology for building Big Data applications with more than 75,000 user downloads a month. Enterprises including Twitter, eBay, The Climate Corporation and Etsy all rely on Concurrent’s technology to drive their Big Data deployments. Concurrent is headquartered in San Francisco. Visit Concurrent online at http://concurrentinc.com.
Media Contact
Danielle Salvato-Earl
Kulesa Faul for Concurrent, Inc.
(650) 340 1982
concurrent@kulesafaul.com