Neon, a serverless Postgres database built for developers, announced a $25.6 million strategic investment led by M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund. Existing investors Abstract Ventures, General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures, and Notable Capital participated in the follow-up investment. This investment brings Neon’s total funding to $130.6 million since its founding in 2021.
This funding illustrates Microsoft’s commitment to the needs of the modern developer. And according to the most recent Stack Overflow survey, Postgres has surpassed MySQL as the most popular database used by professional developers due to its open ecosystem, stability, and performance.
By separating the computing and storage components without breaking away from core Postgres, Neon brings the database into the modern developer workflow, making it more automated, easier to manage, and AI-ready. With this new injection of capital from M12, Neon will fuel the next generation of AI applications built on Azure.
These are the key highlights of Neon’s modern database:
1.) Instant provisioning – Neon natively decouples storage and computing through an innovative approach that includes a custom-built storage engine. This architecture gives Neon the unique ability to provision new databases in under a second.
2.) Efficient scaling—Neon not only saves engineering time during the building phase—when it’s time to scale, Neon effortlessly handles it. Neon databases automatically scale resources according to load, ensuring optimal performance during traffic spikes without the need for overprovisioning in advance. Neon storage is also on-demand—there is no need to manage disks.
3.) Integrated developer workflows—Neon database branches allow for shorter software lifecycles by enabling developers to integrate their database directly into their CI/CD pipelines cost-effectively. The growth in popularity of Neon’s serverless Postgres database technology is, in large part, due to this combination of improved developer experience and better costs.
KEY QUOTES:
“Postgres is quickly becoming the database of choice for developers, and we are investing heavily in that ecosystem. Neon is a leading Postgres platform, and this strategic investment emphasizes our commitment to deeply integrate Neon into Azure.”
- Andrew Smyth, managing partner at M12
“We’re confident that Neon provides the best developer experience for Postgres users. This new investment ensures Neon is well-positioned to build and ship features that will transform the developer experience within Microsoft Azure.”
- Nikita Shamgunov, CEO of Neon
