MariaDB’s Journey: From MySQL Fork to K1 Private Equity Takeover

Introduction Eighteen months after MariaDB went public on the NYSE, private‑equity firm K1 Investment Management announced a pending acquisition offer.

Background In the open‑source software arena, new database products constantly emerge. MariaDB is a community‑driven fork of the well‑known MySQL relational database management system, released under the GNU GPL with commercial support.

Developed by original MySQL creators, MariaDB maintains high compatibility with MySQL APIs and commands. It ships with the Aria storage engine (intended to replace MyISAM) and switched back to InnoDB as the default engine from version 10.2 onward.

Founder Michael "Monty" Widenius, co‑founder of MySQL AB and Monty Program AB, leads MariaDB’s development. He was born on 3 March 1962 in Helsinki and co‑founded TCX DataKonsult AB in 1985 before creating MySQL in 1995.

Creation of MariaDB After leaving Sun Microsystems, Widenius founded Monty Program AB and launched MariaDB, named after his daughter Maria, as a fork of MySQL. Monty Program later merged with SkySQL, becoming MariaDB Corporation.

MariaDB Corporation provides commercial services and support to customers such as the U.S. Department of Defense, Red Hat, Samsung, ServiceNow, and Deutsche Bank.

NYSE Listing On 19 December 2022, MariaDB plc merged with SPAC Angel Pond Holdings and began trading on the NYSE under the ticker “MariaDB”. The initial valuation was $672 million, with an opening price of $11.55 per share, later falling below $1, triggering NYSE compliance warnings.

In FY2023 Q2, MariaDB reported $13.5 million revenue (up 26 %) but a loss of $11.9 million, or $0.18 per share.

Growth Slowdown CEO Michael Howard highlighted continued revenue growth, especially a 101 % increase in cloud‑service revenue, yet investor confidence waned, leading to NYSE notices about maintaining a minimum average closing price.

Layoffs and Spin‑off In April 2023, MariaDB announced layoffs and a “going‑concern” warning. By October, the company secured a $26.5 million loan but announced a 28 % staff reduction and a strategic shift away from certain products. In December, the SkySQL DBaaS business was spun off into a separate cloud‑database company.

K1 Acquisition On 16 August 2024, K1 Investment Management completed a 100 % share acquisition of MariaDB, taking the company private. K1’s GM Sujit Banerjee stated the goal of accelerating product innovation and supporting AI‑ and cloud‑driven workloads.

MariaDB appointed Rohit de Souza as the new CEO (effective February 2025), while former CEO Paul O’Brien will remain as an advisor.

Earlier in 2024, K1’s affiliated fund offered $0.55 per share (~$37.3 million), above the current market price of $0.19 per share. Progress had considered a $0.60 per‑share offer (~$40.6 million) but was not accepted.

MariaDB plans to release new features such as vector search and a Kubernetes Operator to meet AI and cloud‑native demands.

Community Reactions Developers expressed mixed feelings about the acquisition, with some questioning future use of MariaDB in commercial projects and others noting the value of its engineering talent and unique features.

Conclusion While the K1 deal remains a non‑binding offer pending finalization, its impact on MariaDB’s stock performance and strategic direction will be closely watched by developers and investors alike.