Sones, developer of the GraphDB graph database, which operates in the so-called NoSQL space, has appointed a new Managing Director and CEO: Richard Doll joins from Novell where he spent 4 years, most recently as Director of ISV Ecosystem and Channel for the Linux Business Unit. Aside from Novell he has held “leading positions” in various U.S. and German companies including FAST, InterMediaSolutions and DAVID Systems.
Although a native-German, Doll will be relocating from Boston Massachusetts to take up his new position in Leipzig, Germany. He’ll be charged with increasing software sales and the company’s partner program via its Commercial Open Source Strategy, while his appointment is said to have the backing of Sones’ three founders Alexander Oelling, Manager New Business Development; Daniel Kirstenpfad, Software Development, CTO; and Mauricio Matthesius, CFO.
Sones’ GraphDB supplements traditional relational databases and is currently available as a cloud solution from Microsoft Azure and the Amazon Cloud. It links complex, unstructured data together in a way that makes it more scalable, hence the NoSQL (Not only SQL) reference.
In January of this year, the German startup raised a ‘couple of millions’ of euros to expand its cloud computing business and open source community. Investors include KfW Bankengruppe, the early stage venture capital fund of Saxony, and T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom. Back in 2008, sones had already landed an undisclosed amount of seed capital from T-Venture.