About SingleStore
SingleStore was founded in 2011 by Eric Frenkiel and Nikita Shamgunov under the earlier name MemSQL, based on the observation that most database architectures have historically been optimized for either transactional workloads, meaning the fast, reliable processing of individual data updates such as recording a purchase or updating a customer record, or analytical workloads, meaning running complex queries across large volumes of historical data to generate business insights, but rarely both simultaneously with strong performance, typically requiring organizations to maintain separate transactional and analytical database systems and build data pipelines to move data between them, adding complexity and, importantly, delay before transactional data becomes available for analytical querying.
SingleStore's distributed SQL database is designed to handle both transactional and analytical workloads within a single unified system, letting organizations query and analyze data in near real time as it's being generated and updated by transactional application activity, rather than requiring data to first be moved through a separate pipeline into a distinct analytical database before it becomes available for analysis, a capability the company argues is increasingly important for real-time business applications, such as real-time fraud detection, personalization, and operational dashboards, where even modest delays between when data is generated and when it becomes available for analysis can meaningfully reduce the business value of that analysis. The company rebranded from MemSQL to SingleStore in 2020, reflecting its evolution and expanded capabilities beyond its original in-memory database roots into a broader distributed database platform supporting a wider range of deployment models and use cases. SingleStore's customers span organizations across many industries with real-time data analysis needs, including financial services companies needing real-time fraud detection, media and technology companies needing real-time personalization and recommendation capabilities, and various other businesses where the delay inherent in traditional separate transactional-then-analytical database architectures creates meaningful business limitations. The company has raised substantial venture funding from investors including Insight Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, and Google Ventures, reaching a valuation exceeding $940 million, competing with other real-time analytical database platforms.
