Ditto raises $82M in funding for its edge database

Ditto, the developer of a database optimized for use in edge environments, today announced that it has closed an $82 million funding round.

Top Tier Capital Partners and Acrew Capital led the Series B investment. They were joined by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, True Ventures, Amity Ventures, Fundrise, Friends & Family Capital, Advance Venture Partners and Internet Initiative Japan. Ditto is now valued at $462 million, more than double what it was worth after its previous funding round.

Ditto, officially DittoLive Inc., provides a database optimized to run on handsets and connected devices. Companies can use the database to build custom applications for employees. A utility, for example, could create a mobile app that allows field technicians to save information about overhead power line malfunctions.

Ditto uses a document data model to store records. Standard relational databases often require all the entries they contain to follow the same format, which can complicate application development. A document data model removes that requirement. 

The Ditto databases running on a company’s edge devices can regularly sync their contents to a centralized data processing environment. This environment, or Big Peer as the company calls it, may be deployed in the cloud or on-premises. It automates some of the tasks involved in adding more infrastructure resources when usage increases.

A Ditto database can sync information to the cloud even if the device on which it’s installed isn’t in range of a router. It does so by forwarding the information to another Ditto-equipped handset that is closer to the router. According to the company, this peer-to-peer networking approach makes it possible to sync data from more than 400 feet away.

Ditto can transmit information over multiple network protocols. It supports Wi-Fi Direct, a technology that installs a virtual Wi-Fi access point on handsets to facilitate wireless data sharing. Ditto also works with Bluetooth Low Power, a version of Bluetooth that trades off some bandwidth for lower electricity usage.

The database can continue working even when there are no devices nearby to help it connect to the cloud. According to Ditto, its platform’s offline features are powered partly by a technology known as CRDT. The technology allows multiple offline databases to store separate copies of the same record, modify them in isolation from one another and then reconcile the data changes when connectivity is restored.

Ditto’s funding round follows a year in which its annual recurring revenue jumped 250%. Additionally, the company released a connector that allows its platform to sync records to MongoDB Inc.’s Atlas cloud database service. Ditto will use the new capital to expand its partnerships with third-party database providers and hire more employees. 

Image: Ditto