ParAccel

About ParAccel

ParAccel, Inc. was a software company focused on high-performance analytics, operating in the data warehousing and business intelligence market. The company was founded in 2005 by Barry Zane, who had previously been part of the founding team at Netezza, and Brian Chu. Zane's founding mission was to develop the highest performance database in the industry as a software-only solution, eliminating the need for specialized hardware. The company was formally incorporated in February 2006 with Barry Zane as CTO and Tom Clancey as interim-CEO, initially funded by angel investors.

ParAccel provided a database management system designed for advanced analytics, catering to large enterprises in sectors like financial services, retail, government, and healthcare. Its flagship product, the ParAccel Analytic Database (PADB), evolved from an earlier offering called Maverick. The PADB was a parallel relational database system built on a shared-nothing architecture, utilizing a columnar orientation, adaptive compression, and a memory-centric design to accelerate queries for business intelligence. The system, initially based on PostgreSQL, also featured a proprietary optimizer and on-demand integration modules for analytics outside its core platform.

A significant milestone for ParAccel was the licensing of its technology to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2011, which became the foundational technology for the Amazon Redshift database service launched in late 2012. This strategic move was driven by AWS's need for a quick time-to-market for a cloud data warehouse solution. The company attracted substantial venture capital, raising approximately $89.5 million over several funding rounds from investors including Mohr Davidow Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Bay Partners, and Amazon.com. Throughout its history, ParAccel was recognized for its performance, including setting a record in the TPC-H benchmark for a 1 TB data size in 2010.

The company's journey concluded in April 2013 when it was acquired by Actian Corporation. The acquisition was part of Actian's strategy to build an end-to-end big data platform by combining ParAccel's massively parallel processing (MPP) capabilities with its own portfolio. At the time of the acquisition, ParAccel's client roster included prominent names such as MicroStrategy, OfficeMax, and The Royal Bank of Scotland. While Actian integrated ParAccel's assets, the core technology continues to live on as the basis for Amazon Redshift.