- MariaDB, an open-source database company, received a buyout offer from K1 Investment Management for $0.55 per share, potentially amounting to $37 million.
- This offer follows a period of upheaval for MariaDB, with a new CEO and downsizing efforts.
- K1 Investment Management has until March 29 to formalize its offer, while MariaDB Foundation secures support from Amazon Web Services for its open-source project.
MariaDB, the company behind the popular open-source database system, might be getting bought out by a company called K1 Investment Management from California.
K1 recently made an initial offer to buy all of MariaDB’s stock at a price of $0.55 per share, which could be around $37 million in total. However, this offer isn’t final and might change as negotiations continue.
This news comes at a time when MariaDB is going through big changes. They have a new CEO and have been downsizing by selling off parts of their business. MariaDB started as a “fork” of another database system called MySQL about 15 years ago.
This happened because the creators of MySQL were worried about its future after it was acquired by Oracle. MariaDB was created as an open-source alternative to MySQL and has been used by many big companies for managing their data.
The company that runs MariaDB has raised a lot of money over the years to develop new features and services. They even became a public company in 2022. However, their stock hasn’t been doing well on the market. It started at a high value but has been dropping ever since, even falling below the minimum required value for a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Earlier, another investor called Runa Capital made a similar offer to buy MariaDB but later backed out and instead offered a loan. Now, K1 is stepping in with a much higher offer, which is a good sign for MariaDB. K1 has until March 29 to make a formal offer or decide against it, according to the rules MariaDB has to follow.
Meanwhile, the MariaDB Foundation, which oversees the open-source project, has made a deal with Amazon Web Services to support its development. This should help ensure that the open-source version of MariaDB continues to be supported.
MariaDB might be getting a new owner soon, which could help stabilize the company after a period of uncertainty. This could also be good news for users of MariaDB’s open-source database system.
