ClusterHQ Raises $12 Million, Building Data Layer for Docker

Container technology remains major news, and if you bring up the topic almost everyone immediately thinks of Docker.  But there are tools arriving that can compete with Docker, and tools that can extend it and make it more flexible. We've covered Rocket, which comes from the CoreOS team, and is a command line tool for running app containers. And then there is ClusterHQ which has an open source project called Flocker that allows developers to run their databases inside Docker containers and make them highly portable.

This week, Cluster HQ announced that it closed a $12 million Series A investment lead by Accel Partners, with participation from Canaan Partners as well as existing investors. ClusterHQ says it will use the funds to expand technical and go-to-market resources to help organizations use containers in production.

Docker’s container platform went from under 3 million downloads in June 2014 to 100 million in January 2015. That's some serious growth.

According to ClusterHQ's funding announcement:

"At ClusterHQ we are building the data layer for containers, enabling developers and operations teams to run not just their stateless applications in containers, but their databases, queues and key-value stores as well."

"Containers don’t handle data very well. This means that databases, the heart of every application, can’t run in containers without significant engineering resources. Google can do it; the company recently revealed that everything at Google runs in a container. But most companies don’t have Google’s resources."

"With our new equity financing, ClusterHQ is accelerating our mission to give all developers the tools they need to run their critical data services inside containers so they can realize the full speed and quality benefits of a fully containerized architecture."

 In August 2014, ClusterHQ launched Flocker which promises to let developers run their databases inside Docker containers and make them very portable. The company is also working on Powerstrip, a tool to prototype Docker extensions that will accelerate the ability to use Flocker seamlessly with Docker. Flocker is worth watching, and new funding should help it become ready for production environments.