• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, June 24, 2014

Aerospike, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that created a NoSQL database that runs in-memory and supports flash, on Tuesday announced it has closed a $20 million Series C round of funding. New Enterprise Associates led the round.

Other investors included Columbus Nova Technology Partners, Alsop Louie Partners, Regis McKenna and others, including a “few individual investors … strategic to the company,” per an Aerospike representative.

The company has also announced that it is open sourcing its NoSQL database.

“We founded Aerospike because we wanted to simplify scaling and empower all developers -- not just the few who worked at companies with deep enough pockets to build their own technologies,” stated Brian Bulkowski, co-founder and CTO of Aerospike.

Timothy Smith, SVP of technical operations at AppNexus, backed Aerospike’s decision to open source its software, calling it “exactly the right move to introduce many more developers to its technology” in a statement.

Aerospike’s technology is used by several in the real-time bidding (RTB) space, including AppNexus, [x+1] and Chango. It’s also used by data management platforms (DMPs), such as eXelate.

Neustar, a company that recently bought the DMP Aggregate Knowledge, announced Tuesday that it has struck a partnership with Aerospike. Rob Gatto, SVP of media and advertising at Neustar, told Real-Time Daily that Aerospike’s decision to open source its software was not “the sole or leading reason” Neustar chose Aerospike. “Like many technology companies we balance the use of open and closed source software in the our solutions.”