Cloudant
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2008
- HeadquartersBoston, United States
- Headcount51–100
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Cloudant does
Cloudant is a distributed NoSQL database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that provides horizontally scalable JSON document storage for web and mobile application developers. The company was founded in 2007-2008, received early backing from Y Combinator, and raised approximately $16.25M across six funding rounds prior to acquisition, with investors including Avalon Ventures, F-Prime, IQT, Samsung Ventures, Rackspace, and Toba Capital. The company was acquired by IBM in 2011 and now operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary integrated into IBM's cloud data portfolio, principally delivered through the Bluemix / IBM Cloud platform.
Following the IBM acquisition, Cloudant functions as a database technology component within IBM's broader enterprise stack. Its commercial metrics — pricing, customer logos, revenue, and headcount — are not separately disclosed; the firm is operated inside IBM, which itself employs 150,000+ consulting professionals, serves clients in 175+ countries, and reports a 51-100 employee headcount band for the Cloudant entity. The parent (IBM, NYSE: IBM) operates enterprise field sales, consulting-led delivery, and a partner ecosystem that includes Red Hat, Salesforce, and Google Cloud. Cloudant's standalone go-to-market, pricing, and revenue mechanics are subsumed within IBM's Software & Cloud and Consulting revenue streams and are not broken out in the source data.
The technology positioning described in the source material pertains to IBM broadly — watsonx (AI), Red Hat OpenShift (hybrid cloud), IBM Z (mainframe), quantum computing, Granite foundation models, watsonx.governance, and watsonx Orchestrate. Cloudant's specific technical differentiation as a managed JSON document store is not elaborated beyond its original DBaaS positioning. The 51-100 employee count and Boston headquarters (with IBM's parent headquarters in Armonk, NY) suggest Cloudant operates as a focused product engineering unit rather than a standalone commercial entity, with its commercial success reflected inside IBM's consolidated results rather than independently.
Cloudant firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Cloudant
- Website
- https://ibm.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2008
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 51–100 employees
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Cloudant industry classification
Industry- Product category
- NoSQL Database-as-a-Service
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Software Publishers (5132)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) Platforms (HDAEAAAN)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- NoSQL Database Management Systems (HDAEAAAB)
Keywords
Where Cloudant is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Boston
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices3 records
Markets served
Cloudant business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Software and Cloud: Subscription-based software offerings including watsonx platform, Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud services, and various SaaS products
- IBM Consulting: Professional services delivering digital transformation, AI implementation, and hybrid cloud modernization with 150,000+ experts
- Apptio (IBM Company): Technology spend and value management SaaS providing technology business management and FinOps solutions
- Hardware Systems: IBM Z mainframe systems, Power systems, storage solutions including FlashSystem
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | watsonx.ai usage-based pricing |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise subscription pricing |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels6 records
Cloudant product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Cloudant provides a distributed NoSQL database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that stores, scales, and manages JSON document data for web and mobile application developers. Built on CouchDB-derived technology, it offers multi-master replication, eventual consistency, and a managed cloud service model for application data layers.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Cloudant Distributed NoSQL Database-as-a-Service
Quantifiable outcome
- USD 4.5 billion productivity gains unlocked over three years with watsonx Orchestrate
- +10 more outcomes
Companies that use Cloudant
Customer profileNamed customers12 records
Segments6 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Cloudant technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature7 records
Cloudant partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
16 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and regional.
- DeloittecoreDeloitte collaborates with IBM and Red Hat to scale automated vulnerability patching across regulated software supply chains. Extends Project Lightwell capabilities to help protect software supply chain against increasingly sophisticated threats.
- Palo Alto NetworkscoreCollaboration expands Project Lightwell combining vulnerability discovery, virtual patching and software remediation. Palo Alto Networks provides network-level protection while IBM and Red Hat offer software remediation, creating dual-action defense against emerging threats.
- All England Lawn Tennis Club (Wimbledon)coreIBM serves as Official AI, Cloud and Digital Transformation Partner for The Championships, Wimbledon. Partnership spans 35+ years delivering AI-powered fan experiences including Likelihood to Win, Key Moments, and Match Chat features on Wimbledon app and website.
- OpenAIcoreIBM joined OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program bringing frontier AI capabilities into security operations. IBM launched application security service using OpenAI cyber capabilities to help enterprises identify and validate software vulnerabilities with greater speed and precision.
- ConfluentmajorIBM and Confluent technology partnership delivers real-time data for AI agents. Businesses can turn continuously flowing data into trusted, governed action across hybrid environments using IBM watsonx with Confluent streaming platform.
- Google CloudcoreIBM and Google Cloud launched new Google Cloud Practice to help organizations scale AI with human expertise and AI-powered delivery. Expands IBM Consulting Advantage with industry-specific agents for Gemini Enterprise.
- Red Hatcore$5 billion commitment to Project Lightwell establishing trusted enterprise clearinghouse for open source software with AI-driven model for securing software supply chain. 20,000+ engineers dedicated to the initiative.
- CegekaregionalIT Service Provider partnership for IBM Sovereign Core. Cegeka offers pre-architected solution through in-country environment enabling clients to address local compliance standards in Belgium and Netherlands.
- ComputacenterregionalIT Service Provider partnership for IBM Sovereign Core. Computacenter configures software to specific client use cases in Germany, accelerating time-to-value for sovereign cloud deployments.
- MicrosoftmajorIBM Consulting Advantage integrates with Microsoft Copilot to drive smarter, faster workflows with enterprise AI. watsonx capabilities integrated with Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem.
- Bharti AirtelmajorStrategic partnership to augment Airtel Cloud with IBM technology. Airtel is one of India's leading telecommunications service providers expanding cloud capabilities with IBM.
- NVIDIAcoreCollaboration to drive enterprise-ready AI adoption at scale. IBM leveraging NVIDIA AI infrastructure and capabilities within watsonx platform for enterprise customers.
- Agassi Sports EntertainmentmajorMulti-year collaboration to transform global racquet sports with AI-powered platform delivering video coaching, premium content, and commercial experiences for players and fans worldwide.
- SalesforcecoreSalesforce and IBM partnership delivers AI agents and autonomous agents for sales and services processes. IBM integrates watsonx Orchestrate with Salesforce Agentforce, enabling customers to access IBM Z mainframe data within Salesforce Data Cloud.
- Oraclecore40-year strategic partnership milestone. IBM and Oracle expanding partnership to help organizations modernize with AI and cloud. Joint go-to-market for Oracle workloads on IBM infrastructure.
- WipromajorPartnership expansion to offer new AI services and support to clients. Wipro leverages IBM watsonx and consulting expertise for enterprise AI transformation engagements.
Scale indicators15 records
Recent moves3 records
Expansion highlights2 records
Cloudant competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- MongoDB: MongoDB Atlas is the leading cloud-agnostic managed NoSQL document database service, directly competing with Cloudant for web/mobile and AI application workloads across AWS, Azure, and GCP — and is the primary substitute for Cloudant in most enterprise evaluations.
- Amazon DynamoDB: AWS's native managed NoSQL key-value and document database service. Competes directly with Cloudant for serverless, low-latency NoSQL workloads, and benefits from tight AWS integration that Cloudant cannot match on AWS-native deployments.
- Google Cloud Firestore: Google Cloud's serverless NoSQL document database, designed for web and mobile app developers — the same target customer as Cloudant. Direct competitor for greenfield mobile/web backends and AI-driven application data layers on GCP.
- Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB: Azure's globally distributed multi-model database service with NoSQL APIs. Direct Cloudant competitor for enterprise multi-region document workloads, especially for organizations standardizing on Azure as their primary cloud.
- Couchbase: Couchbase offers Couchbase Capella, a managed NoSQL DBaaS built on its own distributed document store architecture that descends from the same memcached/CouchDB ecosystem as Cloudant. Closest technological analog and direct competitor for JSON document workloads.
- DataStax (Astra DB): Astra DB is a managed Cassandra-based NoSQL DBaaS available on AWS, GCP, and Azure. Competes with Cloudant for wide-column / flexible-schema enterprise workloads, especially in use cases requiring linear horizontal scaling.
- Redis: Redis Cloud is a managed in-memory NoSQL DBaaS for caching, session, and real-time application data. Competes with Cloudant for low-latency application data layers, particularly in AI agent and real-time personalization use cases.
Broad incumbents
- Snowflake: Cloud data platform offering managed database, data warehouse, and data lake services. Competes with Cloudant indirectly for AI-ready enterprise data workloads, and represents a broader incumbent that can absorb NoSQL document use cases via unstructured data support.
- Oracle Autonomous Database: Oracle's cloud-managed relational and multi-model database offering. Competes with Cloudant for enterprise transactional and document workloads inside large Oracle estates, and benefits from long-standing enterprise database relationships.
Others
- Confluent: Cloud-native data streaming platform with a managed Apache Kafka service (Confluent Cloud). Partnered with IBM to feed real-time data into watsonx, positioning itself as adjacent infrastructure to Cloudant rather than a direct substitute for the document store.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Cloudant social profiles
Digital presenceCloudant financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Cloudant leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Cloudant funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds6 records
Investors9 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Cloudant 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 Cloudant
What does Cloudant do?
Cloudant provides a distributed NoSQL database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that stores, scales, and manages JSON document data for web and mobile application developers. Built on CouchDB-derived technology, it offers multi-master replication, eventual consistency, and a managed cloud service model for application data layers.
Is Cloudant a public or private company?
Cloudant is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was Cloudant founded?
Cloudant was founded in 2008. It employs 51 to 100 people.
Where is Cloudant based?
Cloudant is headquartered in Boston, United States, in the North America region.
How does Cloudant make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Software and Cloud is the primary driver. The others are IBM Consulting, apptio (IBM Company) and hardware Systems.
Who are Cloudant's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are MongoDB, Amazon DynamoDB, Google Cloud Firestore, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase, DataStax (Astra DB) and Redis. Broad incumbents are Snowflake and Oracle Autonomous Database. Confluent is listed as an others.
Does Cloudant have an API?
No public API is recorded for Cloudant.
What industry is Cloudant in?
Cloudant's product category is NoSQL Database-as-a-Service. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEAAAN, Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) Platforms, with a secondary code of HDAEAAAB, NoSQL Database Management Systems. Its NAICS code is 5182 and its SIC code is 7374.