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Enterprise Software - Friday, January 18, 2008

Sun To Pay Cool $1B For MySQL

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We had heard from an open source software insider recently that he was disenchanted with the space. There have been so many investments in open source companies but few liquidity events. What the sector needs badly he said was a big deal to get investors interested in strategic buys. He may have seen that with Sun's $1B buy-out of MySQL.

For Sun the deal may make Wall Street take notice again. For MySQL and its investors what can you say about a $1B buyout. On our sister site the a:c Euro, our correspondent takes note of the deal as MySQL is a Swedish born startup: "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."

Here's more: In the meantime, one of its investors (see the full list here) Balderton Capital, formerly Benchmark Capital Europe, issued a statement, congratulating 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.

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