PingCAP

What PingCAP does

PingCAP is the commercial sponsor behind TiDB, an open-source distributed SQL database designed for Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP). The platform combines TiKV (row-based OLTP storage) and TiFlash (columnar OLAP storage), synchronized via the Raft consensus protocol, with compute and storage separated to enable independent elastic scaling. TiDB supports the MySQL wire protocol and dialect, ships with native vector indexing and ANN search, and is distributed under Apache 2.0. The company has built an ecosystem of supporting tools (TiUP, TiDB Operator, TiDB Lightning, TiCDC) and adjacent products (mem9 for AI memory, drive9 for storage, OSS Insight for GitHub analytics).

TiDB is offered through two primary go-to-market channels: TiDB Self-Managed (on-premises or customer-controlled cloud with an enterprise subscription tier adding 24/7 support and audit features), and TiDB Cloud, a fully managed DBaaS across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure (30+ regions) with four tiers — Starter (serverless, freemium with 25GiB storage and 250M reads free, pay-as-you-go beyond), Essential (cost-effective scaling), Dedicated (single-tenant with VPC peering and encryption), and Premium (mission-critical, workload-aware auto-scaling, in public preview). Revenue combines subscription (Dedicated, Premium, Enterprise Self-Managed) and usage-based (Starter/Serverless) streams. PingCAP sells through a hybrid PLG + enterprise field-sales motion, supplemented by AWS/GCP/Azure marketplace distribution and a strong open-source developer community (39K+ GitHub stars, 900+ contributors).

PingCAP serves 3,000+ global enterprises across AI agent platforms (Manus, Kimi/Moonshot AI, Dify, Plaud), fintech and financial services (Plaid, Square, China UnionPay), eCommerce (Bolt, Rakuten, Shopee, Mercari), SaaS (Atlassian, Catalyst, Conga), social media (Pinterest, Line), and gaming (CAPCOM). The company has raised approximately $641.6M across six funding rounds, with the most recent being a $300M Series D in May 2021 led by GGV Capital, GIC, and Sequoia Capital. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with operations in Beijing, PingCAP employs 501-1,000 people and was ranked #125 on the 2025 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 with 675% three-year revenue growth. The company holds SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001/27701, PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, and EU-U.S./UK/Swiss Data Privacy Framework certifications.

Name

PingCAP

Legal name

PingCAP (US), Inc.

Website

https://pingcap.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

501–1,000 employees

Short description

PingCAP develops TiDB, an open-source distributed SQL database combining transactional, analytical, and vector search in a single MySQL-compatible engine. The company sells TiDB Cloud (managed DBaaS) and TiDB Self-Managed subscriptions to 3,000+ enterprises across AI agent, fintech, eCommerce, and SaaS verticals.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Distributed SQL Database

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYHDAEAAAN

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) Platforms

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Enterprise Platforms & Databases/Database Management Systems (Relational & NoSQL)

SECONDARYHDAEAAAL

Multi-Model Databases

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Enterprise Platforms & Databases/Database Management Systems (Relational & NoSQL)

SECONDARYBPAEAFAL

Database/Application Data Layer Modernization (DB migration, ORM, caching)

Business & Public Services/IT & Digital Services (Managed Services, Systems Integration)/Application Development & Modernization

Keywords

• Distributed SQL database
• Open source HTAP
• Cloud database service
• MySQL compatible database
• AI-native database platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Sunnyvale

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. TiDB Cloud (DBaaS) - Subscription: Fully managed cloud database service with multiple tiered plans (Starter/Serverless, Essential, Dedicated, Premium). Starter tier offers free storage and reads with pay-as-you-go pricing beyond limits. Dedicated tier provides single-tenant, dedicated compute and storage with VPC peering. Revenue generated through recurring subscription fees based on usage and tier.
2. TiDB Cloud - Usage-based: TiDB Cloud Starter and Serverless tiers use consumption-based pricing where costs follow actual workload. Pay-as-you-go beyond free tier allocations. Costs scale to zero when idle.
3. TiDB Enterprise Subscription (Self-Managed): On-premises or self-managed deployment with enterprise support. Includes features not available in Community Edition (e.g., audit). Differentiator vs Community is access to 24/7 enterprise support and additional enterprise features.
4. Free Tier (Community/Developer): TiDB Cloud Starter provides 25GiB storage and 250 million reads free to enable developer adoption and product-led growth. Supports onboarding of developers and small-scale workloads with a path to upgrade as usage grows.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

PingCAP develops TiDB, an open-source distributed SQL database built on a multi-store HTAP architecture that combines TiKV (row-based OLTP storage) and TiFlash (columnar OLAP storage) synchronized via Raft consensus. The company sells TiDB Cloud, a fully managed Database-as-a-Service with tiered plans (Starter, Essential, Dedicated, Premium) on AWS, GCP, and Azure, plus TiDB Self-Managed for on-premises deployment. Recent focus centers on AI-native capabilities including native vector indexing, agentic AI workload support, and multi-tenant architecture for AI agent applications.

Product overview

PingCAP offers TiDB, an open-source distributed SQL database designed for Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP). The product portfolio consists of the core TiDB engine with MySQL compatibility, deployed through multiple options: TiDB Self-Managed for on-premises/private cloud, and TiDB Cloud with Dedicated (single-tenant), Essential (cost-effective), Starter (serverless), and Premium (enterprise) tiers. The architecture combines TiKV for transactional storage and TiFlash for analytical processing, enabling unified OLTP and OLAP with ACID consistency. Key capabilities include native vector search for AI/RAG workloads, elastic horizontal scaling, and multi-tenancy for AI agent applications. The ecosystem includes tools for deployment (TiUP, TiDB Operator), data migration (TiDB Lightning, TiCDC), and AI integration (mem9, drive9, OSS Insight, PingCAP Clinic).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• TiDB: Open-source distributed SQL database for Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP) workloads, MySQL-compatible with horizontal scaling capabilities.
• TiDB Cloud
• TiDB Cloud Dedicated
• TiDB Cloud Starter
• TiKV
• TiFlash

Products and services

• TiDB Open-source distributed SQL database designed for Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing (HTAP), providing MySQL-compatible horizontal scaling with ACID transactions and strong consistency via Raft consensus. Targeted at developers and enterprises running modern transactional, AI, and other modern applications.
• TiDB Cloud Dedicated Single-tenant, fully managed TiDB deployment with dedicated compute and storage resources, VPC peering, and encryption at rest. Designed for mission-critical enterprise workloads requiring consistent performance, single-tenant isolation, and compliance certifications.
• TiDB Cloud Starter Serverless, pay-as-you-go TiDB Cloud offering for development, testing, and small-scale workloads. Free tier includes 25GiB storage and 250 million reads with instant auto-scaling and vector search capabilities.
• TiDB Cloud Essential Cost-effective fully managed TiDB tier for growing applications, balancing performance and affordability with automatic scaling capabilities.
• TiDB Cloud Premium Premium tier of TiDB Cloud designed for mission-critical businesses with unlimited real-time scalability, workload-aware auto-scaling, and comprehensive enterprise capabilities. Currently in public preview.
• TiDB Self-Managed Deployable on own infrastructure (bare metal, cloud-based, or hybrid installs) with Kubernetes Operator support. Available as Community Edition (free) or Enterprise Subscription including audit features and 24/7 enterprise support.

Quantifiable outcome

• P999 latency reduced from minute-level to sub-100ms in production clusters after upgrading to TiDB 8.5 (100+ TiKV nodes, 4 TiB+ data per store, 150K+ QPS)
• +7 more outcomes

Named customers16 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration12 records

AI capability10 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreTechnology or Integration · 26 May 2026TiDB Cloud is an AWS Partner Network (APN) partner. The platform integrates with AWS services including Amazon Bedrock for AI workloads, leveraging S3-based architecture for compute-storage separation. TiDB Cloud is available on AWS marketplace in 30+ regions.
• Amazon BedrockcoreTechnology or Integration · 26 May 2026TiDB Cloud integrates with Amazon Bedrock for AI workloads, enabling dynamic scaling, serverless branching, and unified hybrid search (vector, full-text, real-time analytics) for autonomous AI agent use cases including ecommerce analytics, financial fraud detection, multi-tenant SaaS, and gaming.

Scale indicators21 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• CockroachDB: Cockroach Labs provides CockroachDB, a distributed SQL database with PostgreSQL compatibility. It is the most direct competitor to TiDB, offering similar horizontal scaling, ACID guarantees, and cloud-managed (CockroachDB Dedicated/Serverless) and self-managed deployment models for enterprise transactional workloads.
• YugabyteDB: Yugabyte provides YugabyteDB, an open-source distributed SQL database with PostgreSQL compatibility and cloud-managed offerings. Directly competes with TiDB on the same core value proposition of horizontally scalable SQL for cloud-native and transactional workloads.
• PlanetScale: PlanetScale offers a MySQL-compatible serverless database platform built on Vitess. It directly competes with TiDB for MySQL-compatible horizontal scaling use cases, targeting both developer-led adoption and enterprise deployments.
• SingleStore: SingleStore (formerly MemSQL) provides a distributed SQL database with HTAP capabilities combining transactional and analytical workloads. Competes with TiDB's HTAP architecture and unified OLTP/OLAP value proposition.

Broad incumbents

• AWS Aurora: Amazon Aurora is AWS's flagship MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible managed database. As a hyperscaler-native incumbent, it competes with TiDB Cloud for managed MySQL-compatible workloads with significant distribution and pricing advantages via AWS marketplace.
• Google Cloud Spanner: Google Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent relational database service. It competes at the high end of the distributed SQL market for mission-critical workloads requiring global consistency and unlimited scale.
• Azure Cosmos DB: Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft's globally distributed multi-model database with multiple APIs including PostgreSQL-compatible. It competes in the same hyperscaler-managed distributed database category as TiDB Cloud on Azure.
• MongoDB Atlas: MongoDB Atlas is a leading document database cloud service that competes with TiDB for modern application database workloads, particularly in SaaS and web applications where flexible schema and horizontal scaling are required.
• Snowflake: Snowflake is a cloud data platform that competes with TiDB's TiFlash analytical capabilities for real-time analytics and HTAP workloads. While Snowflake focuses primarily on analytical workloads, the convergence of transactional and analytical requirements creates partial overlap.

Emerging players

• Pinecone: Pinecone is a managed vector database purpose-built for AI applications and RAG pipelines. It competes with TiDB's native vector indexing for AI/agentic workloads, though TiDB's advantage is unified vector + relational + analytical in a single database.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/tikv/tikv
• Xx.com/pingcap
• Facebookfacebook.com/pingcap2015

Compliance10 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds6 records

Investors21 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about PingCAP