Graph database startup company Neo4j closes $80 million in Series E funding led by One Peak Partners and Morgan Stanley

Neo4j, the graph company behind the #1 platform for connected data, has raised $80 million Series E funding round led by One Peak Partners and Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. The Neo4j graph platform helps organizations make sense of their data by revealing how people, processes and digital systems are interrelated. This connections-first approach powers intelligent applications tackling challenges such as artificial intelligence, fraud detection, real-time recommendations and master data.

Neo4j’s latest round also includes the following existing investors: Creandum, Eight Roads and Greenbridge Partners. Since its founding in 2007, Neo4j has raised a total of $160 million in growth funding – the largest cumulative investment into a graph database company. Today’s funding helps Neo4j continue to deliver customer success with graph-powered business applications, while increasing investment in the company’s flagship graph platform to support popular use cases, including graph-enabled artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems.

David Klein, Co-founder and Managing Partner of One Peak Partners, who co-led Neo4j’s Series E funding round, drew an interesting parallel: “Similar to how Oracle revolutionized the way organizations use data by innovating, scaling and maturing relational databases, Neo4j is leading the way in how connected data drives next-generation business applications,” said Klein. “We see great potential for using graph data as a means for powering and enriching AI and other learning applications by providing context. Only Neo4j has the technological expertise and insight into customer needs to to be successful in delivering on graph-powered AI.”

Founded in 2007 by Emil Eifrem and Johan Svensson, Neo4j boasts the world’s largest dedicated investment in native graph technology, has amassed more than ten million downloads, and has a huge developer community deploying graph applications around the globe. More than 250 commercial customers, including global enterprises like Walmart, Comcast, Cisco, eBay and UBS use Neo4j to create a competitive advantage from connections in their data.

Commenting on the funding and the decision to invest in Neo4j, Robert Bassman, Managing Principal of Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, said: “We believe that Neo4j is at the forefront of a new database category,” said Bassman. “Graph databases are emerging as a key part of enterprise data infrastructure and are being used to build and transform critical business applications. Neo4j’s increased traction with enterprise customers underscores the demand for databases built for today’s connected world. We’re thrilled to be investing in Neo4j to help bolster their leadership position while continuing to push the entire category forward.”

With more than 300 customers, including UBS, Walmart, eBay, Adobe, Volvo, Orange and AstraZeneca, Neo4j is the world’s most widely deployed graph database, enabling connected data applications for more than 75% of the Fortune 100. Neo4j’s clear category leadership has attracted a thriving ecosystem of leading systems integrators like Capgemini and EY, cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, plus a wide range of technology companies offering complimentary tools for visualization, data integration and analytics.

Forrester Research, a leading global research and advisory firm, has already noted Neo4j’s leading position in the graph technology space.

“Neo4j continues to dominate the graph database market,” wrote Forrester. “Neo4j released version 1.0 of the open source Neo4j property graph database in 2010 and since then has continued to deliver innovation and expand the product to support broader use cases. Today, Neo4j is used by many of the world’s largest companies in industries such as technology, travel, financial services, retail, telecommunications, and government.” Vendor Landscape: Graph Databases, Forrester Research, Inc., October 6, 2017.

“I’m immensely proud of what Neo4j has achieved,” said Eifrem. “We have taken graph databases from an idea to a product and now to a platform that serves mission-critical needs at the world’s leading banks, telcos, retailers, technology companies, auto manufacturers and logistics brands. This latest funding round will provide Neo4j with the resources to serve our new and existing customers with the best graph platform to harness connected data for AI.”

Neo4j is privately held and funded by Eight Roads Ventures (an investment arm of Fidelity International Limited), Sunstone Capital, Conor Venture Partners, Creandum, Dawn Capital and Greenbridge Investment Partners. Headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Neo4j has regional offices in Sweden, Germany and the UK.