We are ScyllaDB

/SILL-ah/DEE-BEE

We are the team behind ScyllaDB, the monstrously fast + scaleable NoSQL database that powers data-intensive applications.

We apply our low-level knowledge to build the best NoSQL database for predictable performance at scale. Spread across 27 countries, we are committed to an open culture, working together, and to ensuring our users’ success.

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Our Story

ScyllaDB was founded by the team who designed and developed the KVM hypervisor, the default hypervisor in many cloud computing environments, including Google Compute Engine, Amazon Web Services, and OpenStack.

Our company is growing rapidly and we have team members spread across the globe. This is our story.

about-1000bc2x-1
  • Circe creates the original data lake that turns Scylla into a sea monster.
  • Scylla collects data on maritime shipping disasters and safe passages in the Straits of Messina.
1182 BC
about-linux-love
  • Avi Kivity and Dor Laor meet at Qumranet, where Avi invented a new hypervisor model, one that uses hardware acceleration and aligns with Linux’s everything-is-a-process design. Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) later became the industry standard.
2005
about-2015-coding
  • After stints at RedHat, the team launched ScyllaDB. Rewriting the Cassandra architecture from scratch in native code with all of the know-how of years of kernel/hypervisor coding, this became the ScyllaDB database.
  • First company swag launched: Boxer shorts with the company slogan “Less is More”
2014
about-2017-pingpong-circle
  • Avi presents at Cassandra Summit 2015 Million CQL Operations per Server
  • ScyllaDB beta launched
  • Sea Monsters participate in first internal ping pong league in Tel Aviv
2015
about-2016-release
  • ScyllaDB 1.0 launched
  • First ScyllaDB Summit in San Jose, California and ScyllaDB Sea Monsters explore Yosemite National Park
  • Participated in GSOC (Google Summer of Code) project
  • US Headquarters opened
2016
about-enterprise
  • ScyllaDB Enterprise launched
  • ScyllaDB Open Source 2.0 launched
  • ScyllaDB Sea Monster plush toy launched to the delight of all
  • ScyllaDB Summit 2017 is in San Francisco and Sea Monsters explore Monterey Bay
2017
about-2018-manager
  • ScyllaDB Manager launched
  • ScyllaDB Summit 2018 is in Redwood Shores and Sea Monsters explore San Francisco
  • Comcast, Grab and Kiwi.com share their stories at ScyllaDB Summit
  • ScyllaDB Open Source 3.0 launched bringing support for concurrent OLTP and OLAP
2018
about-2019-university 2019
about-trophee 2020
Timeline 2021 image
  • ScyllaDB Summit went virtual to the largest audience yet with 1000s of attendees and 30+ presentations.
  • ScyllaDB hosts the first ever P99 CONF, the event for developers who care about P99 percentiles and high performance, low-latency applications.
  • ScyllaDB Enterprise 2021 is released
2021
2022 timeline thumbnail
  • ScyllaDB Announces ScyllaDB V, addressing legacy NoSQL challenges.
  • Uber, Lyft, Square, ScyllaDB & Google engineers speak at the 2nd annual P99 CONF, the event for developers who care about P99 percentiles and high performance, low-latency applications.
  • ScyllaDB ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in North America on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™.
2022

Core Values

Mission Accepted: Build the Best NoSQL Database

Illustration of ScyllaDB Sea Monster
Open Culture

Our work is done in the open and we are straightforward with each other.

Illustration of ScyllaDB Sea Monster
Commitment

We are committed to excellence and bring our best game every day.

Illustration of ScyllaDB Sea Monster
Yes, We Can

The biggest challenges get us going in the morning.

Illustration of ScyllaDB Sea Monster
Better Together

We are one team. Cross-team pollination and a feedback culture make us better.

Illustration of ScyllaDB Sea Monster
Fairness

We are fair with ourselves, our users, our community, our investors, everyone.

ScyllaDB Management Team

Avi Kivity

CTO & Co-founder

See Bio

Kivity, CTO of ScyllaDB, is known mostly for starting the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) project, the hypervisor underlying many production clouds. He has worked for Qumranet and Red Hat as KVM maintainer until December 2012. Avi is now CTO of ScyllaDB, a company that seeks to bring the same kind of innovation to the public cloud space.

Dor Laor

CEO & Co-founder

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Dor Laor is the CEO of ScyllaDB. Previously, Dor was part of the founding team of the KVM hypervisor under Qumranet that was acquired by Red Hat. At Red Hat Dor was managing the KVM and Xen development for several years. Dor holds an MSc from the Technion and a Phd in snowboarding.

Danit Livne

CFO

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Danit has over 20 years of operational and financial expertise in high-tech companies. Her experience includes M&As, investor relations, early-stage investments, strategic planning & organizational leadership.

Prior to joining ScyllaDB, Danit was a partner at Nextage and CFO at top-tier venture-backed multinational technology companies.

Danit is a registered CPA (Isr.) and holds a BA in Accounting and Economics from Haifa University and an LLM degree from Bar Ilan University.

Wayne Ariola

Chief Marketing Officer

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Wayne Ariola is a recognized thought leader in DevOps, Software Testing and open-source. Wayne has created and marketed products that support the dynamic software development landscape. He has driven the design of many innovative technologies and received several patents for his inventions. He has been a contributor to the software testing space for many years and in the software industry for more than 20 years. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Jon Bakke

CRO

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Jon Bakke is a leading expert in the industry with nearly 30 years of experience working for leading database companies supporting commercial and government customers. Jon's history and wealth of knowledge are a key element to ScyllaDB's continued growth and adoption across industries.

Tzach Livyatan

VP of Product

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Tzach Livyatan has a B.A. and MSc in Computer Science (Technion, Summa Cum Laude), and has had a 15 year career in development, system engineering and product management. In the past he worked in the Telecom domain, focusing on carrier grade systems, signalling, policy and charging applications.

Austin Rutherford

SVP of Customer Engineering

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Austin brings 20+ years of experience in the Database and Analytics industry to ScyllaDB. Most recently he built and led the global pre-sales, professional services, customer success, and support organizations at MariaDB. Previously, Austin was a co-founder of “Digital Engineering” at Cognizant, which inspires customers to leverage modern engineering methods and technologies. Before Cognizant he was responsible for field strategy and operations at Pivotal. Austin currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife, three daughters, and golden retriever.

Yaniv Kaul

VP of R&D

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Yaniv brings over 25 years of experience in the software industry, ranging from cyber security malware research to quality assurance, virtualization, and storage.

Previously at Red Hat, Yaniv led the Cloud Infrastructure engineering group, which included the OpenStack, Virtualization Management, Cloud Storage and Data Services, and Performance and Scale engineering groups for over 7 years. A graduate of University of Hertfordshire (BSc., Computing and Networks), Yaniv holds 8 patents related to virtual machine performance tuning, in-memory caching, and SSD block-based storage.

Gabriel M. Mizrahi

VP of Engineering

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Gabriel is a highly accomplished engineering executive with over two decades of experience in technology and engineering. He has held a number of senior management positions and has a deep understanding of IT, hosting, and cloud environments. He has held several CTO and VP R&D positions in the past, including one at DarioHealth Corp where he was responsible for the company's software technology, infrastructure, security and architecture strategies. He also served as CTO and Chief Architect at Investing.com where he led the development of new features and platforms, and implemented infrastructure upgrades that improved performance, scalability and security.

Karin Nidam

VP of Operations

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Karin is a results-oriented global operations leader with extensive experience in a wide range of operational fields. For the last eight years, Karin has been responsible for leading efforts in various operations infrastructure activities, special projects and processes at ScyllaDB. Karin always aims to increase organizational effectiveness, emphasizing operational excellence and corporate development.

Before joining Scylla Karin was the Israel Equestrian Federation CEO. When not handling Scylla’s operations, Karin enjoys different types of sports activities (running, riding horses), reading and spending time with her beloved family.

Orit Zeltzer Niv

VP People

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Orit leads the global HR and recruitment department at ScyllaDB. She has 15 years of experience in recruitment and HR in the Hi-Tech industry, 10 of which are in management, and holds a B.A in Sociology & Gender Studies and M.A in communication.

Rich Nigro

VP of Sales

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Rich has 20+ years experience in sales and sales management, most recently leading the Enterprise and SMB teams at MySQL/Oracle. A self-professed sales nerd, he helps focus his teams’ efforts on delighting customers and prefers being in front of them with reps actively listening and coaching. When not thinking about sales, Rich pursues a variety of creative outlets such as cooking, writing and painting as well as enjoying the outdoors with his family and French Bulldog, Zorro.

Ilan Ackerman

VP Sales EMEA & APAC

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Ilan has more than 20 years of broad experience in all aspects of strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, financial and executive sales leadership within the high tech arena including SQream Technologies, Comverse Technology (M&A with Mavenir), and Bezeq group (BEZQ.TA). Ilan holds a BA degree in economics and finance and an MBA. In his off hours, Ilan is a music advocate and an accomplished winemaker.

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Want to Join the ScyllaDB Team? We’re Hiring!

ScyllaDB Board of Directors

Benny Schnaider

Ravello Systems

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Benny Schnaider is a high-tech serial entrepreneur. Benny was the CEO and co-founder of Qumranet (KVM) acquired by Red Hat, the CEO and founder of PentaCom Ltd. (acquired by Cisco), and the co-founder and board member of P-Cube (acquired by Cisco.) Recently he co-founded Ravello systems and serves as its president and board chairman. Benny also invests and serves as a board member in several start-ups and has held senior management, engineering and strategic roles at many Silicon-Valley based companies. He holds a Masters degree in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University, and a BSc in Computer Engineering from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology).

Adam Fisher

Bessemer Venture Partners

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Adam Fisher is a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, where he manages the firm’s Herzliya office focused on investments in Israel and Europe. He joined BVP in 2007 after 9 years with Jerusalem Venture Partners, where he was partner in their New York, Jerusalem and Beijing offices. Adam covers several areas of investment at BVP, including consumer Internet, enterprise SaaS and data center infrastructure, and disruptive technology companies in storage and wireless.

Avi Kivity

ScyllaDB

See Bio

Avi Kivity, CTO of ScyllaDB, is known mostly for starting the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) project, the hypervisor underlying many production clouds. He has worked for Qumranet and Red Hat as KVM maintainer until December 2012. Avi is now CTO of ScyllaDB, a company that seeks to bring the same kind of innovation to the public cloud space.

Dor Laor

ScyllaDB

See Bio

Dor Laor is the CEO of ScyllaDBD. Previously, Dor was part of the founding team of the KVM hypervisor under Qumranet that was acquired by Red Hat. At Red Hat Dor was managing the KVM and Xen development for several years.Dor holds an MSc from the Technion and a Phd in snowboarding.

Davor Hebel

Eight Roads Ventures

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Davor leads the Ventures team in Europe and joined Fidelity Growth Partners (now Eight Roads Ventures) in 2005. He is on the board of Made.com, Notonthehighstreet.com, Packlink and More2. His past investments include Innogames (MTG), Treatwell (Recruit) and Seatwave (Ticketmaster). Earlier in his career, Davor spent several years at McKinsey and Company, where he advised companies on issues of strategy and technology. He was also an entrepreneur in his native Croatia. Davor holds a tech degree from ASU, an MISM from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Yahal Zilka

Magma Venture Partners

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Yahal is the co-founder of Magma Venture Partners. Magma is positioned as the leading Venture Capital Fund in Israel. Prior to Magma, Yahal served as the CFO of VocalTec Communications from 1995 to 1999, where he was part of the team that pioneered VoIP and led the company from seed to its public offering on Nasdaq (NASDAQ:CALL). Yahal led and was on the boards of Waze (acquired by Google), Onavo (acquired by Facebook), Argus (acquired by Continental), DesignArt Networks (acquired by Qualcomm), Phonetic Systems (acquired by Nuance) and Adience (acquired by Teddy Sagi Group). Yahal currently serves as a director on the boards of many startups and is an investor in leading companies.

Merav Weinryb

Qualcomm Ventures

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Merav is the Head of Qualcomm Ventures in Israel. Merav serves as a Board Member/Observer in Weka.io, Stratoscale, Magisto, Mantis Vision, Medisafe, ScyllaDB, Splacer, TabTale, Tapingo and Zeek. Merav was also a Board Observer at Panoramic Power, which was acquired by Direct Energy, and Corrigon, which was acquired by eBay. Prior to joining Qualcomm Ventures, she was a Director at Intel Capital, and before that a principal at Pitango Venture Capital. Merav holds a B.Sc. in Information Systems Engineering (cum laude) from the Technion, and an MBA from INSEAD, France. Merav is also the founder and is on the steering committee of the Women Founder Forum, an organization that encourages and supports female tech entrepreneurs.

Amir Fridman

Western Digital Corporation

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Mr. Amir Fridman serves as Director of Western Digital Corporate Business Development and Capital investment in Israel and Europe. Previously, Mr. Fridman served as Director of Corporate Business Development at SanDisk Ventures. In addition, Mr. Fridman has served as SanDisk Director of OEM Strategic Marketing. Before joining SanDisk, he was Director of Strategic Marketing and Product Management at M-Systems Mobile BU. Mr. Fridman earned his MBA from Tel Aviv University and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Bar Ilan University.

Shahar Tzafrir

TLV Partners

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Before joining TLV Partners, Shahar was a general Partner at Magma Venture Partners, in funds III and IV. Shahar led the Investments and sat on the boards of AIdoc, Guesty, ScyllaDB, Tonkean, Coretigo, WireX and Real. In addition, he led the investments in Argus (acquired by Continental), Applitools, Syte, CloudEndure and Ubeya. Shahar is a 3X startup founder veteran (1997 – 2011): Federation, acquired by Cordys; Oblicore, acquired by CA; and DigitalFuel, acquired by VMWare. A graduate of the IDF Mamram computer division, he holds unit, division and signal & communication corps annual distinction awards. A strong chess player, Shahar has expertise in Advanced Chess – a combination of AI and human play.

ScyllaDB Investors

Founded in New York in 1911, Business Venture Partners has funded over 100 start-ups that went on to become independent public companies, among them Skype, Hotjobs, Yelp, Versant (now Symantec), and Staples. From offices in New York, Silicon Valley, Boston, Mumbai and Herzliya, BVP today manages more than US$2 billion of venture capital, invested in more than 130 start-ups around the world.

Eight Roads Ventures is a global proprietary investment firm backed by Fidelity. For nearly fifty years they’ve been using their global scale, expertise and market reach to build bold and disruptive businesses. Visit: eightroads.com

Innovation Endeavors empowers the best and brightest to connect and launch game-changing ventures. Founded in 2010 by Dror Berman and funded by Eric Schmidt, Innovation has backed over 100 entrepreneurs and more than 46 early stage companies. With its open space office in Palo Alto, Innovation Endeavors is changing the way venture capital firms and entrepreneurs interact, embracing fun, accessible, and design-driven entrepreneurship.

Magma is a leading venture capital firm founded in 1999 with over $500 million under management. Magma specializes in investments in early stage companies developing innovative technologies in sectors such as Software/Platform/ Infrastructure as a service (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS), data storage, cyber security, internet, mobile, cloud and new media. Magma focuses on Israeli-related opportunities and helps to build companies that target global markets and create industry leading success stories. Notable exits include: Waze (acquired by Google), Onavo (acquired by Facebook), Provigent (acquired by Broadcom), Wintegra (acquired by PMC-Sierra), DesignArt (acquired by Qualcomm) and others. For more information, please visit www.magmavc.com

As the Venture Capital investment group of Qualcomm,the world leader in next-generation mobile technologies, Qualcomm Ventures has been making investments in early-stage technology companies since 2000. Qualcomm Ventures seeks to make strategic investments in high-technology companies that have the potential to dramatically transform our world. For more information please visit www.qualcommventures.com

Wing is a purpose-built venture capital firm founded by 2 industry veterans with a different view of what it takes to build enduring companies. Our sole focus is the transformation of Business Technology by the Cloud, Mobility and Data. We commit to our companies in their early stages, but engage for the long term. Our body of work spans two decades and dozens of companies, 16 of which have executed successful IPO’s and achieved market caps in excess of $1 billion. Recent examples of our work include FireEye, Mobile Iron, Nimble Storage, Opower and Ruckus Wireless. Helping build companies like these is our singular purpose at Wing.

TLV Partners is an early stage VC with $270M under management. TLV Partners is about pursuing our dream to build the best home for Israeli entrepreneurs. We invest in early stage startups and help them grow, excel in and lead new markets.

Our core belief is that entrepreneurs – not VCs – build great companies. Our Job is to empower you.

Western Digital Capital is the investment arm of Western Digital Corp., a global provider of products and services that empower people to create, manage, experience and preserve digital content. Its companies design and manufacture storage devices and home entertainment products under the WD, SanDisk, HGST and G-Technology brands. Western Digital Capital partners with innovative startups that improve how data is generated, saved, managed, and consumed. We provide the capital, expertise, and connections required to scale the organizations of tomorrow. For more information, please visit the Western Digital website: www.westerndigitalcapital.com

Vertex Ventures is a global network of funds, comprised of affiliates in the US, Israel, China, Southeast Asia and India. This is a unique platform our portfolio companies realize by leveraging the combined experience and resources of our global partners. www.vertexventures.com

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