Startup Addict Musings

MySQL sold for $1 billion big ones…this is huge news. 2008 is officially the year of open source. The open source database startup MySQL was acquired by Sun Microsystems for $1 billion. MySQL was originally funded $39 million from Benchmark, Index, IVP, Intel, and SAP.

TechCrunch stated:

Startups with similar business models - managing a free open source project and bolting for-pay services on as a business model, will be happy to see this. Wordpress and OpenAds are two that we follow closely.

This news comes on the heels of Drupal founder Dries starting Acquia armed with $7 million in VC funding in a Series A financing led by North Bridge Venture Partners, with Sigma Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. VC’s are flocking to fund startups that will feed services to a growing user base in open source.

It crazy two of the most potent open source ingredients in SA 2.0 are already heading mainstream in a flurry of pay-service business models. Check out the ingredients in the Startup Addict platform:

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Just like the successful trend Red Hat procured through linux. Sun is now the Red Hat of MySQL and Acquira is the Red Hat of Drupal. “Life is good”….lets hope the services make “Life better”.

Tags: VC //