ScyllaDB
ScyllaDB makes a fast, Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible NoSQL database in C++.
On the record
Checkpoint: 48 month mark since last primary round (Oct 2023) without new institutional funding
The call
ScyllaDB still has real engineering depth and marquee customers, but funding has stalled and traffic is shrinking while bigger players close the speed gap.
ScyllaDB builds databases that handle huge amounts of data very quickly. The company spent over a decade perfecting its technology and attracting big customers, which gives it a real head start over Amazon DynamoDB and MongoDB, but these rivals are not blocked from catching up, just slower to do it. The warning sign is clear: the company has stopped hiring, website traffic dropped nearly 28 percent in one quarter, and it has not raised new funding in almost three years, suggesting it may have hit a ceiling rather than continuing to grow fast. The one thing that could reset the story is a new round of funding from major investors, which would mean people still believe in its future; silence on that front for much longer would signal the company is stuck at its current size.
Why
01
AI pressure: Pinecone, Milvus, Weaviate, Qdrant and Postgres plus pgvector. AI apps route vector search to purpose built or pgvector stores first, ScyllaDB's vector search only reached GA in January 2026, already late. Could AI do the core job? Unlikely.
02
Bigger players: Amazon DynamoDB and MongoDB Atlas. AWS can cut DynamoDB prices anytime and MongoDB Atlas keeps closing the performance gap, both have far bigger sales and cloud reach. Could a giant copy it? Probably.
03
What protects it. Deep C++ engineering and real high throughput customers like Discord and Comcast who would need to rearchitect to leave.
What would change this call
ScyllaDB announces a new priced funding round within 12 months. Would show investor confidence and reversed growth stall.
MongoDB or AWS publish benchmark or pricing updates narrowing ScyllaDB's latency/throughput edge. Would show the technical head start is eroding.
ScyllaDB headcount or web traffic continues declining through 2026. Would confirm the plateau and shrinking commercial momentum.
MongoDB or AWS publish benchmark or pricing updates narrowing ScyllaDB's latency/throughput edge. Would show the technical head start is eroding.
ScyllaDB headcount or web traffic continues declining through 2026. Would confirm the plateau and shrinking commercial momentum.
Key numbers
- 33+ months since last primary funding round
- Web traffic down 27.9% QoQ
- 225 employees, down about 2% YoY
Named risks
- No new primary funding round in 33+ months since October 2023, only secondary share activity recorded.
- Late entrant to fast-growing vector-database category, GA only in January 2026.
- Web traffic down 27.9% QoQ and headcount down 2% YoY as of June 2026.
- December 2024 shift from AGPL to source-available license risks alienating open-source community.
- No public GAAP revenue disclosure, obscuring true financial health.
Rivals, as read in July 2026
| Rival | Direction | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| MongoDB | contesting | ScyllaDB marketed Oct 2023 $43M round as taking on MongoDB at scale; MongoDB is public with ~$2B revenue (FY2024). |
| Amazon DynamoDB | contesting | ScyllaDB's Alternator API targets DynamoDB migration; added native vector search to Alternator May 2026. |
| Pinecone, Milvus, Weaviate, Qdrant | losing to | ScyllaDB is a late entrant to vector databases, reaching GA on Vector Search only in Jan 2026. |
| Postgres plus pgvector | losing to | Free pgvector ecosystem threatens to capture AI vector-search workloads ScyllaDB is targeting in 2026. |
Questions people ask
- Is ScyllaDB profitable in 2026?
- No public financials are disclosed. ScyllaDB claimed 800% overall revenue growth and 100% YoY DBaaS growth in 2023 (Deloitte Fast 500), but has never published GAAP revenue or profit figures as of mid-2026, per company press releases dated March 2024.
- Has ScyllaDB raised new funding recently?
- No. Its last primary round was $43M in October 2023, led by Eight Roads Ventures and AB Private Credit Investors. As of June 2026, Pitchbook shows no new primary round in 33+ months, with only secondary share activity recorded.
- Is ScyllaDB laying off employees?
- No confirmed layoffs found. Headcount sits at about 225 employees as of June 2026, down about 2% year over year per Crustdata, described as flat rather than an active layoff event.
- Who is ScyllaDB's biggest competitor?
- ScyllaDB positions itself against MongoDB and Amazon DynamoDB, explicitly marketing its October 2023 funding round as a move 'to take on MongoDB at scale.' It also competes with Cassandra, Couchbase, Aerospike, and newer vector databases like Pinecone and Qdrant.
- Could AI replace ScyllaDB's product?
- Unlikely to replace its core distributed-systems engineering, but AI is reshaping demand: ScyllaDB shipped native Vector Search to GA in January 2026 and released 'Agent Skills' for AI coding agents in May 2026, positioning itself as AI/RAG infrastructure rather than being displaced by AI.
- Who owns ScyllaDB?
- ScyllaDB is privately held and venture-backed, with no IPO. Key investors from its funding history include Eight Roads Ventures, AB Private Credit Investors, TLV Partners, Magma Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures, with the last primary round closing in October 2023.
Timeline
- 2026-06-29Released 2026.2: Alternator Streams GA, Cassandra SAI-compatible vector indexes, Oracle OCI storage support
- 2026-06-26Patched two CVEs (CVE-2026-31947, CVE-2026-31948) in release 2026.1.6
- 2026-05-19Added native vector search to Alternator (DynamoDB-compatible API), benchmarked 12K QPS on 10M vectors
- 2026-05-13Released ScyllaDB Agent Skills for AI coding agents
- 2026-03LTS release 2026.1: Vector Search gained filtering and quantization, Tablets gained counter support
- 2026-01-08Released ScyllaDB 2025.4 with native Vector Search reaching General Availability
- 2025-06-17Launched ScyllaDB X Cloud with elasticity and just-in-time autoscaling
- 2024-12Shifted core database license from AGPL open source to source-available
- 2023-10-17Raised $43M led by Eight Roads Ventures and AB Private Credit Investors, last primary round to date
Revision history
21 July 2026
First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
Sources
- ScyllaDB (2026-07-20)
- ScyllaDB Raises $43M to Take on MongoDB at Scale (2023-10-17)
- ScyllaDB 2026 Company Profile
- ScyllaDB Revenue: Annual, Quarterly, and Historic (2023-07-20)
- ScyllaDB Continues Record Growth (2024-03-27)
- ScyllaDB Named Fastest Growing NoSQL Database (2024-02-28)
- From Raw Performance to Price Performance (2025-06-03)
- New ScyllaDB X Cloud Redefines Database Elasticity (2025-06-17)
- ScyllaDB (2026-03-03)
- ScyllaDB - Headcount, Funding & Open Jobs (2026-06-19)
- scylladb Headcount by Region & Department
- Announcing ScyllaDB 2025.4 (2026-01-08)