San Francisco tech firm SingleStore continues aggressive growth in downtown Raleigh
Before last summer, the San Francisco tech company SingleStore didn’t have an office in the Triangle.
A half a year later, its workplace in Raleigh’s Warehouse District is already bursting at the seams.
Raleigh is playing an important role in SingleStore’s expansion plans, which have been boosted by more than $300 million in funding from investors, including an $80 million injection last fall.
The company, which makes database management software, has hired 38 people at its Raleigh office in the past year, and plans to hire another 30 to 50 in the next year.
Already, it is on the hunt for additional space downtown to house those future employees.
SingleStore’s software platform has gained traction for its ability to quickly query and manage data across multiple sources, such as the cloud computing offerings from Amazon, Red Hat, Google and Microsoft.
It’s a tool that’s become critical as the amount of data collected by companies skyrockets. SingleStore has attracted attention from heavy hitters in the tech industry, including the venture arms of Google, HP and Dell. It also has a partnership with SAS Institute, the Cary-based data analytics company.
Last year, SingleStore entered the Triangle market with a bang, when it convinced Oliver Schabenberger, then SAS Institute’s No. 2, to become its chief innovation officer. Schabenberger had long been viewed as the heir apparent to SAS CEO Jim Goodnight.
Two of the company’s top executives now work out of the Raleigh office. In addition to Schabenberger, Mick Charles, the company’s head of human resources, is a longtime resident of the Triangle. (A Raleigh marketing firm also helped rebrand the company from MemSQL to SingleStore.)
Charles said that since Schabenberger was brought on board, Raleigh has become a critical hub for SingleStore’s growth.
“We have a new focus (for hiring) now, which is really East Coast first,” Charles told The News & Observer in a recent interview.
Raleigh stands out, Charles said, because of its relative affordability, pool of talent and its location in an East Coast timezone.
“We can get more bang for our buck with engineers here than we can (in California), because they don’t have to worry about the incredible cost of living,” Charles said.
On a recent tour of the company’s Raleigh office, sales reps huddled around desks on the first floor and software engineers worked silently on the second floor.
Its current office could comfortably hold around 50 employees, Charles said, and on most days around half of the staff works from home.
SingleStore was remote friendly before the pandemic, but it still values the importance of offices when it comes to recruitment.
“You’re less of an unknown quantity if people can reach out and find you,” Schabenberger said. “In that sense, the office has really, really helped.”
While the Raleigh office is home to a diversity of roles, Schabenberger leads SingleStore’s innovation hub out of it. His team is tasked with navigating SingleStore’s long-term plans for new products and solutions.
“Technology is changing very quickly” in cloud computing, Schabenberger said from his second-floor office. “If you don’t think about what’s happening next, and what’s happening after that, you’re going to be left behind. You cannot rest on your laurels and say, ‘I have a great product.’”
Schabenberger said he spends his time thinking about what analytics will look like in five years, testing out different technologies and speaking with customers to find out what their pain points are.
It’s a role that was attractive to Schabenberger because it allowed him to work more on innovative technology than C-suite management.
“We’re looking ahead at technology — whether it’s blockchain or crypto or Web3,” he said. “What is our position on it? What does it really mean for us? What does it mean for a database company and where is it going? We chase those questions.”
Schabenberger, a native of Germany, said he is optimistic on the future of the Triangle’s tech scene.
“There’s a reason Google’s putting so many (people) here, right? They’re seeing something,” said Schabenberger, who has worked in the Triangle since 2002. “I think we have a massive opportunity in the Triangle to be a much bigger technology player.”
That could bring growing pains in the next few years, as both Apple and Google, as well as smaller firms like SingleStore, ramp up hiring, he said.
“But on the other hand, they’re going to bring talent to the region,” he said. “They’re building the brand for the region and that’s going to help us.”
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 7:11 AM.
