GridGain
GridGain provides an enterprise distributed in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite, delivering sub-millisecond SQL, transactions, and vector search for real-time analytics and AI workloads across Financial Services, Telecommunications, Logistics, and Retail sectors.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2015
- HeadquartersPalo Alto, United States
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What GridGain does
GridGain is an enterprise software vendor providing a distributed in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite, the open-source project the company created and donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 2014. The core platform delivers sub-millisecond query latency, horizontal scale-out, ACID-compliant transactions, distributed ANSI-99 SQL, and active-active geo-replication across commodity hardware or cloud infrastructure. The product portfolio extends beyond the core data grid with GridGain Control Center for cluster management, GridGain Nebula for fully managed SaaS deployment, GridGain for z/OS for IBM mainframe environments, and GridGain for AI which packages vector search, feature stores, prediction caches, and model repositories for real-time AI workloads.
The company serves enterprise customers primarily in Financial Services (Citi, RBC, BNP Paribas), with additional deployments in Payments, Telecommunications (Verizon), Transportation & Logistics (American Airlines, UPS), Retail (24 Hour Fitness), and Technology/Hardware (Motorola Solutions). Its go-to-market combines direct enterprise field sales (with technical evaluations and Proof of Concept cycles) and a strategic implementation partnership with Tech Mahindra for global deployment services, alongside community-led developer engagement through the Apache Ignite project and Ignite Summit events. Revenue is generated through Enterprise and Ultimate edition licensing (annual subscriptions priced on data volume and cluster size), the Nebula cloud subscription, and professional services for implementation and training.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Foster City, California, GridGain raised approximately $52 million across seven funding rounds from Almaz Capital, RTP Global, CJ Corporation, R136 Ventures, and Broadway Angels before being acquired by MariaDB plc in March 2026 to form an AI-Ready Operating Platform targeting agentic AI workloads.
GridGain firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- GridGain
- Legal name
- GridGain Systems, Inc.
- Website
- https://gridgain.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2015
- Operating status
- Acquired
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- GridGain provides an enterprise distributed in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite, delivering sub-millisecond SQL, transactions, and vector search for real-time analytics and AI workloads across Financial Services, Telecommunications, Logistics, and Retail sectors.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
GridGain industry classification
Industry- Product category
- In-Memory Computing Platform
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Query Engines & SQL Analytics Layers for Warehouses/Lakes (HDAEABAI)
Keywords
Where GridGain is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Palo Alto
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
GridGain business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Enterprise Software Licensing: Perpetual and subscription-based software licenses for GridGain Enterprise and Ultimate editions, including support and maintenance. Revenue generated through enterprise license agreements with tiered pricing based on data volumes and cluster size.
- Cloud/SaaS Subscription (GridGain Nebula): Managed cloud service revenue from GridGain Nebula SaaS platform, offering pay-as-you-go and subscription models for cloud-native in-memory computing deployments.
- Professional Services: Implementation, training, and consulting services for enterprise deployments, including architecture design, migration, and optimization services.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free Trial available for evaluation purposes |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise and Ultimate editions with volume-based pricing |
| Subscription | Monthly | Cloud-native SaaS deployment options |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels5 records
GridGain product offering
Product offeringCore offering
GridGain provides an enterprise-grade in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite, delivering sub-millisecond response times for transactional and analytical workloads at scale. The platform supports distributed SQL, key-value, and compute APIs, with ACID compliance, active-active geo-replication, native vector search, and integration with AI/ML feature stores. It is sold as licensed enterprise software (Enterprise and Ultimate editions), a managed cloud service (GridGain Nebula), and via professional services, targeting financial services, payments, telecommunications, transportation and logistics, and retail organizations.
Product overview
GridGain offers a unified real-time data platform built on Apache Ignite (the open-source project the company created and donated to Apache in 2014). The product portfolio consists of the core GridGain Unified Real-Time Data Platform supplemented by specialized modules: GridGain Control Center for cluster monitoring and management, GridGain Nebula for cloud deployments, GridGain for z/OS for mainframe environments, and GridGain for AI for real-time AI/ML workloads. Following the March 2026 acquisition by MariaDB, these capabilities are being integrated into MariaDB's AI-Ready Operating Platform to create a unified system combining transactions, analytics, and in-memory computing for autonomous AI agents.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- GridGain Platform: Unified real-time data platform for distributed in-memory computing
- GridGain Control Center
- GridGain Nebula
- GridGain for z/OS
- GridGain for AI
Products and services
- GridGain Unified Real-Time Data Platform Enterprise-grade in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite, delivering millisecond query times, horizontal scale-out, and flexible data access via SQL, key-value, or compute APIs. Supports ACID transactions, built-in failover, encryption, and RBAC for 24/7 uptime, targeting enterprise mission-critical deployments in financial services, payments, telecom, logistics, and retail.
- GridGain Control Center Comprehensive monitoring and management tool for GridGain and Apache Ignite clusters, providing real-time cluster monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimization capabilities. Available both as an online hosted service and an on-premises downloadable version for behind-the-firewall deployments.
- GridGain Nebula Cloud-hosted managed SaaS deployment option for the GridGain in-memory computing platform, providing cloud-native deployment and management capabilities with subscription-based pricing for cloud deployments, eliminating infrastructure management overhead.
- GridGain for z/OS Enterprise-grade in-memory computing solution designed for IBM z/OS mainframe environments, enabling real-time data processing capabilities within mainframe infrastructure.
- GridGain for AI Enables organizations to use GridGain as a low-latency data store for real-time AI workloads. Unifies feature stores, prediction caches, model repos, and vector search capabilities in a single platform for AI/ML workloads.
- GridGain Professional Services Implementation, training, and consulting services for enterprise deployments, including architecture design, migration, optimization, customer support, training and certification, and developer bundles for GridGain enterprise customers.
Quantifiable outcome
- Sub-millisecond response times for real-time data processing workloads
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use GridGain
Customer profileNamed customers8 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
GridGain technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability7 records
Feature5 records
GridGain partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Tech MahindracoreStrategic partnership with Tech Mahindra for implementation and deployment services of GridGain in-memory computing platform. Tech Mahindra provides consulting, implementation, and managed services for enterprise deployments, particularly in global markets.
- IBMminorJoint webinar and go-to-market activities with IBM Z Platform, demonstrating GridGain capabilities on IBM mainframe environments for enterprise customers requiring high-performance data processing.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
GridGain competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Hazelcast: Closest direct competitor: Hazelcast offers an enterprise in-memory data grid with distributed computing, SQL, and stream processing built on its own open-source project. Competes head-to-head with GridGain for the same financial services and enterprise workloads on latency and scale.
- Redis: Redis is the dominant open-source in-memory data structure store used for caching, real-time analytics, and increasingly vector/AI workloads. Competes with GridGain on in-memory performance, distributed architecture, and AI/vector use cases, with a much larger community footprint.
- Aerospike: Aerospike is a real-time NoSQL in-memory database optimized for sub-millisecond latency at extreme scale, with strong adoption in financial services, ad-tech, and fraud detection. Competes with GridGain on ultra-low-latency transactional workloads at large data volumes.
- SingleStore (formerly MemSQL): SingleStore is a distributed SQL database that combines in-memory rowstore with disk-based columnstore for real-time analytics. Targets similar HTAP and real-time data hub use cases as GridGain, particularly in financial services and telecom.
- Couchbase: Couchbase is a distributed NoSQL cloud database with in-memory caching (Memcached-compatible) and built-in SQL-like querying (N1QL/SQL++). Targets enterprise applications requiring low-latency data access at scale, overlapping with GridGain's digital integration hub and real-time use cases.
Broad incumbents
- Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database: Oracle's TimesTen is a high-performance in-memory relational database targeted at OLTP and real-time analytics, often deployed in telecom and financial services. As part of Oracle's broader database portfolio, it competes with GridGain in enterprises already standardized on Oracle infrastructure.
- SAP HANA: SAP HANA is a flagship in-memory database platform used for real-time transactional processing, analytics, and AI workloads within SAP's enterprise application ecosystem. Competes with GridGain where enterprises need sub-millisecond performance bundled with broader ERP/data warehouse capabilities.
Emerging players
- DragonflyDB: DragonflyDB is a modern in-memory data store compatible with Redis and Memcached protocols, designed for higher throughput on commodity infrastructure. As an emerging open-source alternative, it overlaps with GridGain's Nebula/cache use cases and could attract price-sensitive mid-market workloads.
- Tarantool: Tarantool is an in-memory database and application server with Lua scripting, popular in telecom, fintech, and digital advertising. Competes with GridGain in low-latency transactional and edge-of-network workloads, particularly across EMEA and Russia/CIS markets.
- Starburst (Trino): Starburst provides a distributed SQL query engine (Trino-based) for federated analytics across data lakes and warehouses. Adjacent to GridGain's distributed SQL layer, increasingly relevant for enterprises debating where to place real-time query workloads between data lake engines and in-memory data grids.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
GridGain social profiles
Digital presenceGridGain financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
GridGain leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
GridGain funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds7 records
Investors5 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
GridGain M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about GridGain
What does GridGain do?
GridGain provides an enterprise-grade in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite, delivering sub-millisecond response times for transactional and analytical workloads at scale. The platform supports distributed SQL, key-value, and compute APIs, with ACID compliance, active-active geo-replication, native vector search, and integration with AI/ML feature stores. It is sold as licensed enterprise software (Enterprise and Ultimate editions), a managed cloud service (GridGain Nebula), and via professional services, targeting financial services, payments, telecommunications, transportation and logistics, and retail organizations.
Is GridGain a public or private company?
GridGain is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently acquired.
When was GridGain founded?
GridGain was founded in 2015. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is GridGain based?
GridGain is headquartered in Palo Alto, United States, in the North America region.
How does GridGain make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Enterprise Software Licensing is the primary driver. The others are cloud/SaaS Subscription (GridGain Nebula) and professional Services.
Who are GridGain's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Hazelcast, Redis, Aerospike, SingleStore (formerly MemSQL) and Couchbase. Broad incumbents are Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database and SAP HANA. Emerging players are DragonflyDB, Tarantool and Starburst (Trino).
Does GridGain have an API?
Yes. GridGain provides thin client APIs for multiple programming languages including Java, Scala, .NET, C++, NodeJS, Python, and PHP. These thin clients allow applications to work with GridGain clusters via Binary Client Protocol. The PHP client public API specification includes classes for Client, ClientConfiguration, CacheConfiguration, QueryEntity, QueryField, and QueryIndex. Authentication support includes username/password, and TLS options are available for secure connections. Connection options include configurable send/receive chunk sizes and TCP no-delay settings. Developer documentation is at www.gridgain.com/docs/latest.
What industry is GridGain in?
GridGain's product category is In-Memory Computing Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEABAI, Query Engines & SQL Analytics Layers for Warehouses/Lakes. Its NAICS code is 54151 and its SIC code is 7372.