IBM announced on Monday that it will acquire Boston-based Cloudant, a database-as-a-service company that simplifies the development process for mobile and web apps. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Cloudant will boost IBM's big data and analytics, cloud computing and mobile offerings. The company will also strengthen IBM's cloud solutions by giving developers the tools and resources to build, test, deploy and scale cloud apps on a slew of hosting layers.
"IBM has a rich history in the field of data management, and one that will truly differentiate Cloudant's technology in the marketplace," said the company's CTO and Co-founder Adam Kocoloski in the release. "Joining IBM allows Cloudant to innovate faster than ever before, and IBM's track record in open source software gives us complete confidence in our ongoing collaboration with the Apache CouchDB project. Cloudant could not have found a better home than IBM."
Founded in 2008 by three MIT physicists, Cloudant offers distributed NoSQL database services. The local company has raised $16 million in total from Avalon Ventures, Devonshire Investors, an affiliate of Fidelity Investments, Rackspace and Toba Capital. Most recently, Cloudant raised a Series B round worth $12 million in May 2013.
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014. Following the finalization of the deal, Cloudant will join IBM's newly formed Information and Analytics Group led by senior VP Bob Picciano, a business unit within the IBM Software & Systems Group.
In addition to its Boston headquarters, Cloudant has offices in the UK and Seattle. In spring 2013, the company noted that it had plans to open an additional space in San Francisco.
