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January 17, 2008
Sun's Acquisition of MySQL - What The VCs Said
Yesterday Sun announced that it was acquiring open source database company at a valuation of $1B (€680M) in a deal that is expected to close later this year. In the meantime, one of its investors (see the full list here) Balderton Capital, formerly Benchmark Capital Europe, issued a statement, congratualting the firm, saying that it held about 15% of MySQL.
We checked in with Index Ventures this morning to see if it had a statement too. Danny Rimer - who counts MySQL as the first investment he did as a partner at Index - responded to our email writing that "it’s been exciting for us to watch the company grow as the leader in the open source industry. Now, with the ability to leverage SUN’s global distribution and enterprise support, we look forward to seeing MySQL technology spread even further around the world.”
He pointed out that Index invested in the $19.5 million Series B round in June 2003. Other Open Source companies that Index invested in over the years include: Trolltech, Zend, OPenads and Pentaho.
A comment he made on the European market is worth noting.
"Index believes we’re entering a really interesting time where the power of the European and global markets will now be felt. The startups of 5 to 10 years ago are entering strong growth phases," said Rimer.
Our only comment on the deal from the a:c euro's outsider point of view is that with currency rates the way the are these days, a billion dollar exit is not as sexy as a billion euro exit.
Posted on January 17, 2008 02:43 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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