MapR: $30M Funding for Big Data, Hadoop Global Expansion

Hadoop and Big Data specialist MapR Technologies will be expanding its global presence a lot quicker thanks to a new round of funding that has put $30 million in the company's coffers. The funding was led by new investor Mayfield Fund, but also includes existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA and Redpoint Ventures. In total, MapR has raised $59 million in funding.

The new funding will be used for accelerating MapR's global expansion and continued research development. With this latest round of funding, MapR's first goal will be expansion into the Asia-Pacific region to serve what it described as a "growing customer base in the region." The company has already expanded into Europe, opening offices in 2012 in London and Munich.

"Organizations across industries have experimented and tested various use cases on Hadoop. Now we are entering a new phase where the focus is on production deployments, which calls for the broad support of applications that MapR uniquely provides," said John Schroeder, CEO and co-founder of MapR Technologies, in a prepared statement. "We're excited to have Mayfield join our team of top-tier investors. We'll leverage their deep expertise in big data to continue to accelerate our hyper-growth business."

MapR has placed its bet on Hadoop in solving the Big Data problem, and the company is using Hadoop for cloud Big Data management. Last summer, MapR's vice president of marketing, Jack Norris, told Talkin' Cloud that Hadoop for Big Data management in the cloud is inevitable. It took seven years of evangelizing Hadoop, but Norris noted there has been an uptick in Hadoop interesting. Additionally, channel opportunities around Hadoop are likewise increasing.

MapR works with a variety of technology partners, including Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Web Services , Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), EMC (NYSE: EMC) and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), but it's currently unknown if this new round of funding and the planned expansion into Asia-Pacific will have an effect on the channel. Within the channel, MapR is still an emerging player, but as it continues to grow, perhaps it will turn to channel partners to continue to grow its business. Time will tell.