Apple just bought a tiny database company called FoundationDB
We've reached out to Apple and FoundationDB to confirm. Neither company has posted anything official about the acquisition yet, but CrunchFund - the VC company cofounded by Michael Arrington, the guy that founded TechCrunch - was an investor. So TechCrunch's scoop seems solid.
And given Apple's ginormous push into all things cloud computing, this acquisition would make a lot of sense.
FoundationDB makes something called a noSQL database, which it was offering as a cloud service. noSQL is a popular database for Web applications, as it stores all sorts of data in any messy form, unlike traditional databases, which like all data to be neatly formatted.
FoundationDB had some unique technology, too, which allowed it to work exceptionally fast and at really low costs.
It's not the biggest, baddest noSQL database out there, but many of the startups in that whole category are doing well. Business was booming for the young company, which came out of stealth in August, 2013.
There's no hint as to what Apple paid but FoundationDB had raised nearly $23 million in two rounds from SV Angel, Sutter Hill and CrunchFund.
Before cofounding FoundationDB, CEO David Rosenthal was VP of Engineering at Omniture. He then cofounded the company with COO Nick Lavezzo and Dave Scherer in 2009.
Apple neither confirmed nor denied the buy to TechCrunch, sending it this statement, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."