MySQL sold for US$1bn

MySQL was established in Sweden in 2001 by two Swedes and a Finn: David Axmark, Allan Larsson and Michael “Monty” Widenius, who have worked together since the 1980s.

It raised its first round of venture capital shortly after it was founded, from local investors Eficor Oyj and Scope Venture Capital. For its B round in June 2003, it attracted the attention of some of Europe’s bigger venture houses, Benchmark Europe (now Balderton Capital), Index Ventures, with the now extinct Scope returning. All three invested again in 2004 before a final round at the end of 2005, which saw investment from Intel Capital, SAP, Red Hat Ventures and Institutional Venture Partners XI. In total, MySQL raised just under €27m of venture money.

The database software developed by MySQL has been deployed by many leading internet and technology companies including Facebook, Google, Nokia, and China Mobile. It has its headquarters in Uppsala, Sweden and Cupertino, California, USA.

Barry Maloney, a partner at Balderton Capital, said: “We are thrilled that Sun Microsystems recognised the value in MySQL, a company that is at the forefront of building the future of the web. We congratulate Kevin Harvey, Marten Mickos and the rest of the board and management team at MySQL and are confident that they will go on to achieve greater success as part of Sun.”