It’s been fun to watch the emergence of both graph database technology and the market opportunity over the last few years. At a prior startup (Knowledge Reef Systems), it was apparent from the outset in 2007 that we needed a graph database as the storage foundation for our kReef service. After a couple of false starts with other open source and proprietary products, we finally converged on Neo4j from Neo Technology. Emil and his team have done a superb job of developing probably the best graph database on the market. Without the Neo4j engine, we would not have launched veloGraf Systems. Unlike the big players in the social media market who can afford to build their own graph database technology (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…), as a “bootstrapping” startup we simply lack the resources and time to “roll our own”. And, had we chosen that path, we probably would have just built an inferior, application-specific version of the Neo4j system.

So we placed our bet on the Neo Technology team. While I’m certain Emil and other graph database cognoscenti would dispute the comparison with the RDBMS market, my prediction is the winning solution will come from the supplier who can balance technology development requirements with marketing demands. As with almost every other software category, the winners manage to thread the needle between these competing demands. And, sadly enough, the big winners usually sacrifice their technology edge for market share. As one of the few, if only, VC-funded graph database companies, Neo Technology now has a board of directors with a clear demand for a successful commercial outcome driven by revenue-generating customers. That’s good news because it focuses the Neo team on developing an ecosystem to support Neo4j application developers. This goes beyond simply driving the narrow NoSQL agenda and building programs to meet the needs of a much broader array of developers including enterprise application developers.

Our self-interest in the success of Neo4j is obvious. I’m encouraged by the adoption of graph database technology by the social media services since it validates our premise that the big driver for this technology is social data. While far from mainstream, graph database technology is on the right trajectory and Neo Technology is well-positioned to be a leader in this market.