Aiven’s track record in the open source community which it plans to build on, has been praised by investors including IVP and World Innovation Lab.

Finnish cloud and open source company Aiven has achieved a $2bn unicorn valuation following the extension of its Series C funding round.

The total sum it secured in the funding round was $160m, bringing its total funding to date to $210m. The round was co-led by the company’s existing investors, World Innovation Lab and IVP, along with participation from others such as Atomico.

Several investors increased their funding commitments just seven months after the company’s initial $100m Series C round.

The software company plans to use the capital to expand its operations into the Asia-Pacific region by opening an office in Singapore. Aiven already has a presence in Helsinki, where its 230 employees work in various tech hubs in the Finnish capital reaching clients in Berlin, Boston, Toronto and Sydney.

“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, the company’s CEO and co-founder.

“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 start-ups,” he added.

Investment in the wider community

The company plans to continue its investment in the wider open source community. Later this year, it will launch its own start-up programme, which will offer participants one year’s mentoring as well as free access to Aiven’s data platform.

According to Eric Liaw, general partner at IVP, his firm 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”.

Liaw praised Saarenmaa’s leadership, adding that the Aiven team is delivering “tremendous value” for their customers, and that the company “has more than quadrupled” since IVP’s original investment.

Tsune Shirota, partner at World Innovation Lab echoed Liaw’s assessment of the company’s growth.

“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,” concluded Shirota.

In February, Aiven’s CTO Heikki Nousiainen spoke to Silicon Republic about future data trends as well as how businesses can be successful with digital transformation.

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