Xkoto

About Xkoto

Founded in 2005 by Ariff Kassam, Xkoto established itself as a provider of data virtualization solutions before its acquisition by Teradata in May 2010. The company, which maintained headquarters in both Waltham, Massachusetts, and Toronto, Ontario, secured approximately $13 million in funding over several rounds, with investors including GrandBanks Capital, GrowthWorks, and Stata Venture Partners.

Xkoto's core business centered on its proprietary software, GRIDSCALE. This product was engineered to virtualize database infrastructure, enabling businesses to distribute application loads horizontally across multiple database copies. The primary benefit for clients was enhanced reliability and performance of their database systems. GRIDSCALE operated on a shared-nothing architecture, which allowed a cluster of database servers to appear and function as a single, cohesive server to the applications it supported. This load-balancing technology was compatible with Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2, serving enterprises that required high availability and scalability for their data operations.

The company's business model involved developing and selling this specialized load-balancing software, and it formed partnerships with major technology firms like IBM, Sun Microsystems, HP, and Sybase. By creating an active-active cluster, Xkoto's solution ensured continuous data availability and managed intensive database workloads efficiently. Teradata's acquisition of Xkoto was aimed at integrating this database virtualization technology to bolster its own product development, particularly in relation to its Agile Analytics Cloud strategy.