Confluent shows open source, paradigm shifts, cloud, and commercial success can all co-exist
Confluent just became a unicorn. We discuss why, what happens from now on, and how this is significant for the entire data ecosystem and the world at large with CEO Jay Kreps
Confluent, the vendor offering a commercial version and services for the open source Apache Kafka platform, just received $125 million in funding. This has launched Confluent into unicorn territory with a valuation of $2.5 billion. You probably know this by now, and if you’ve been following, you also know why and how Confluent got to this point.
ZDNet has been keeping track of Kafka and Confluent’s evolution, and the news were a good opportunity to catch up with Jay Kreps, Confluent CEO. Here is the lowdown on how Kafka will evolve from now on, the latest updates on the data streaming landscape, and last but not least, what this all means for the cloud and open-source software.
Getting a funding of this magnitude, and from this kind of investors, is about more than money. It’s mostly about an affirmation of the value proposition and the business model. Confluent must be doing something right with Kafka. Not bad at all for a company for which the common mantra was that it’s not mainstream enough. Apparently, the prospects for its subscription based offering looked good to investors.