Samsung Invests in Cloudant, Prepping for 'Internet of Things'

Mobile device usage is growing, and so are the amount of apps and data associated with these devices. It's why Samsung Venture Investment Corporation has made a strategic investment in database-as-a-service provider Cloudant. The funding will be used to advance research and development to further improve global data distribution technologies and mobile application data management.

The reasoning behind the strategic investment is Samsung’s interest in the mobile world. The proliferation of mobile devices means the data associated with these devices is growing exponentially. Cloudant provides a highly scalable NoSQL DBaaS for storing, processing, transferring and managing the volume and complexity of this data. Cloudant is able to distribute application data across a global network of data centers while providing non-stop data access with low latency for its customers.

“Samsung Ventures believes a globally distributed data layer and management of that data is especially critical for large enterprise businesses,” said Hyuk-Jeen Suh, Senior Investment Manager with Samsung Ventures America. “We felt that this is the right time to strategically invest in Cloudant to support the company’s vision to manage the proliferation of data to be created by, for example, mobile devices, machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies, and the ‘Internet of things’ in the future.”

Cloudant provides global data distribution, mobile replication and synchronization (application developers build their back ends on the Cloudant Data Layer cloud database), monitoring and scalable performance. It serves government agencies, enterprises, and SMBs. It accelerates time-to-market and time-to-innovation because it frees developers from the mechanics of data management so they can focus exclusively on creating great applications.

“Cloudant looks forward to enhancing our research and development efforts, especially in the mobile technology platform, to accelerate our progress in the market for database-as-a-service,” said Cloudant CEO Derek Schoettle.

Cloudant is privately held and backed by top-tier investors including Avalon Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and Y Combinator.