Confluent, a US-based data streaming platform developer backed by social media platform LinkedIn, received $50m yesterday in a series C round led by venture capital firm Sequoia.
Fellow VC firms Benchmark and Index Ventures also took part in the round, which increased Confluent’s overall financing to $81m since it was founded in 2014.
Confluent has built a streaming platform based on Apache Kafka open-source data streaming software. It enables businesses to access and process data in real time from a variety of sources including sensors, websites, applications, customers and suppliers.
LinkedIn invested in the company’s $6.9m series A round in 2014 together with Benchmark and Data Collective, before Benchmark and Index Ventures added $24m in mid-2015. Matt Miller, a partner at Sequoia, has joined its board of directors in conjunction with the series C round.
Jay Kreps, Confluent’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “After a successful 2016, we are excited to start 2017 with the investment led by Sequoia and with Matt Miller joining our board.
“As we work with companies of all sizes deploying streaming platforms and using Apache Kafka, we are committed to providing the best platform and solutions to use real time data across the multitude of use cases and believe Matt and Sequoia will be great additions to our team.”