ParadeDB, the new kid on the open-source database block, has been gaining momentum since its start in 2023. The company has developed a Postgres extension that facilitates full-text search and analytics directly within the Postgres environment, eliminating the need for users to transfer their data to a separate source. At ParadeDB, our core team is just four people. As interest in Postgres skyrockets amid the artificial intelligence boom, the company plans to increase its staff to a minimum of ten employees.
The technical burden co-founders Philippe Noël and Ming Ying experienced with Postgres search functionality while building their first startup, the cloud-hybrid browser Whist, helped shape this vision. This experience led them to create ParadeDB. Through this firsthand experience, they discovered a hole in their market. They saw the need for a tool that builds upon Postgres capabilities, without sacrificing data ownership.
Noël emphasized the significance of their approach, stating, “We think building on Postgres is actually a meaningful shift, right? Because that’s where the data is, and you can make a meaningful dent in Elasticsearch’s market share by meeting users where their data is, rather than building something that’s marginally faster or marginally cheaper.”
The duo released the first open-source version of ParadeDB in February 2023, quickly catching fire across their developer community and capturing the attention of data professionals everywhere. The extension is compatible with many popular data infrastructure tools. You can painlessly integrate it with Google Cloud SQL, Azure Postgis, and Amazon RDS, allowing you power, flexibility, and ease of use.
ParadeDB’s innovation has not gone unnoticed. When Alibaba became the company’s first customer in May 2024, it marked a critical step in validating its product’s usefulness in a competitive, growing market. This milestone was more than just an accomplishment for the young upstart, it was the moment the small company started to find its footing in its new industry.
ParadeDB just closed $12 million in Series A funding just before the holidays. Craft Ventures led the round, with heavy participation from existing investors including Y Combinator. This latest round of funding will allow the company to continue its rapid growth and expand its product offerings.
“It’s clear people are recognizing that Postgres matters a lot, and they want to get behind it,” Noël commented on the increasing interest in Postgres as a primary database solution. He believes that “Postgres is becoming the default database of the world,” highlighting a growing acknowledgment of its potential.
The team at ParadeDB is passionate about presenting Postgres users the best experience possible with the best search capabilities found in Postgres. Despite the advancements in database technologies, Noël noted that “you still can’t do good search over that information, believe it or not.” Our own came in the need to build a platform that would provide users with more powerful analytics tools, without requiring them to give up ownership of their data.
ParadeDB is young but already making waves and attracting the tech industry’s giants. It’s committed to changing the way that users even think about and work with their data. The company has prospectively tripled the size of its workforce. Its goal with all of this, of course, is to bolster its product offerings and have a big impact on the direction of database technology going forward.