
About us
We believe open source software can change the world.
For companies of all sizes, Instaclustr is a one-stop destination for deploying, managing, and monitoring all components of the data infrastructure. Instaclustr allows companies to focus internal development and operational resources on building cutting-edge customer-facing applications.
Our multi-faceted global team with offices in the United States, Australia, and Europe ensures your application-critical data services are taken care of 24×7x365.
March
- Ben Bromhead and Adam Zegelin start working on Relational.io
June
- Pete Lilley and Doug Stuart provide initial hatch funding
August
- Instaclustr starts to develop Cassandra-as-a-Service
October
- Get our first customer: Numbeez
December
- Now have two active customers
May
- Change company name to Instaclustr
September
- Cassandra Summit in San Francisco
- Launch Managed Apache Cassandra
November
- ANU Connect Ventures leads $2 million seed round
December
- 50 nodes under management with six staff and six customers
February
- Managed Apache Spark launches
March
- US office opens
May
- 100 nodes under management
June
- Add Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and Heroku as cloud providers
December
- 400 nodes under management and 20 staff and 28 customers
February
- Support subscriptions commence
March
- Apache Zeppelin added
October
- Bailador Technology Investments leads $7 million Series A round
November
- Google Cloud added as cloud provider
December
- 800 nodes under management with 30 staff and 52 customers
February
- 1,000 nodes under management
May
- 10 million node hours under management
June
- Elassandra launches
July
- SOC 2 accreditation
December
- 15 million nodes under management with 50 staff and 90 customers
February
- 20 million node hours under management
March
- Apache Kafka launches
April
- UK office opens
June
- 100 Production Customers
August
- Level Equity leads $15 million Series B round
December
- Reach US $10 million net annual recurring revenue (ARR)
January
- On-prem managed service available
May
- Boston office opens
- Kafka Schema Registry is added
- Instaclustr offers Certified Apache Cassandra
- We have over 100 customers
August
- 50 million node hours under management
- Scottsdale office opens
September
- Cassandra K8s Operator is released
December
- PCI-DSS Certification
February
- Instaclustr Terraform Provider available
March
- Managed Elasticsearch is released
June
- Managed Kafka Connect is released
- CoreOS replacement is complete
September
- Managed Redis is released
- Managed Kafka Mirroring is released
October
- Dedicated ZooKeeper for Kafka is released
November
- Instaclustr has more than 125 employees
December
- More than 100 million node hours under management
March
- Instaclustr acquires credativ
May
- Managed ZooKeeper is released
June
- Instaclustr achieves PCI-DSS compliance for Managed Elasticsearch on AWS
- TrustWith more than 200 million node hours under management across operational and production environments, we have seen it all. We can provide you with uptime guarantees because we know what we are doing and what to expect.
- TeamTrust for us is much more than just saying you can trust our solutions. We have worked hard on obtaining independent assessments and certifications including SOC 2 and PCI to provide assurance to customers that our environment can be trusted.
- TenacityWe ensure absolute resiliency and provide the uptime and assurance our customers require. Others talk about it, we live by it.
- Peter Lilley Chief Executive OfficerPeter Lilley Chief Executive OfficerSUMMARY
Peter is CEO and a Co-founder of Instaclustr. He has more than 25 years of experience and expertise in information technology services, both as a business leader and implementer of customer solutions. Peter previously led Stratsec, a specialist cybersecurity business, as CEO from startup through growth and onto successful exit in 2011. At Stratsec, he had responsibility for all aspects of the business from its foundation in 2003, its growth across Australia, and into South East Asia culminating in the naming of Stratsec as Australian Business of the Year in 2010, along with several other cybersecurity awards. In 2011, Stratsec was acquired by BAE Systems with Peter taking on a senior cyber leadership role until the founding of Instaclustr in 2013. Peter is now applying his experience in growing great companies to building and scaling Instaclustr.
- Steve Francis CRO & EVP GTM OperationsSteve Francis CRO & EVP GTM OperationsSUMMARY
As Chief Revenue Officer & EVP GTM Operations, Steve is responsible for all go-to-market functions including Sales, Customer Success, Sales Engineering, Marketing, Consulting & Instaclustr Labs.
Steve has experience leading large sales teams with revenue responsibility in excess of $100M in markets including hybrid cloud, ERP, SDN virtualization, database, and middleware. Before joining Instaclustr he led US Commercial sales for SDN and Cloud Management at VMware.
Steve earned his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management where he was a Sloan Fellow. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Washington.
Steve lives in Seattle, Washington and is a lover of the outdoors and keen on boating in particular.
- Ben Bromhead Chief Technology Officer and Co-FounderBen Bromhead Chief Technology Officer and Co-FounderSUMMARY
As Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder at Instaclustr, Ben sets the technical direction for the company. Ben is located in our California office and is active in the Apache Cassandra community.
Prior to Instaclustr, Ben had been working as an independent consultant developing NoSQL solutions for enterprises and was running a high-tech cryptographic and cybersecurity formal testing laboratory at BAE Systems and Stratsec.
- Ben Slater Chief Product OfficerBen Slater Chief Product OfficerSUMMARY
As Chief Product Officer, Ben is charged with steering Instaclustr’s development roadmap and overseeing the product engineering, production support, open source, and consulting teams.
Ben has over 20 years experience in systems development, including previously being lead architect for the product that is now Oracle Policy Automation, and over 10 years as a solution architect and project manager for Accenture. He has extensive experience in managing development teams and implementing quality controlled engineering practices.
- Doug Stuart Chief Operating Officer and Co-FounderDoug Stuart Chief Operating Officer and Co-FounderSUMMARY
Doug is a Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder at Instaclustr. He also leads Instaclustr Labs, an initiative designed to grow and leverage our enabling services capabilities, capture new and innovative ideas, and extract value from our extensive deep technical experience and body of knowledge. Before this role, Doug led the marketing division at Instaclustr.
Prior to Instaclustr, Doug was a Co-founder of Stratsec, a world-class, highly awarded and recognized cybersecurity consulting, testing, and research firm, which was acquired by BAE Systems in 2011. Stratsec was awarded Telstra Business of the Year in 2010. Doug has also been recognized as a leading entrepreneur in the industry through the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Program in 2010.
- Michael Meskes Chief Information OfficerMichael Meskes Chief Information OfficerSUMMARY
Before becoming the CIO of Instaclustr, Michael founded and managed credativ and its Open Source Support Center. He bootstrapped the company to become a multi-national specialist for open source services. In the process, he helped numerous businesses improve their IT infrastructure by using pure open source solutions. On the community side, Michael has been a developer for nearly 30 years working on different open source projects, including well-known solutions like Debian and PostgreSQL. He has also engaged in significant open source evangelism and given related presentations at various events. Michael teaches open source infrastructure components at a local university as an adjunct professor.
- Evita Davies Deputy Chief Financial OfficerEvita Davies Deputy Chief Financial OfficerSUMMARY
Evita works with the Leadership and Operations team to deliver accounting, tax, and financial capability. Evita is a Chartered Accountant with over 15 years experience across a number of industries, working previously for the accounting and advisory firm PwC and at an ASX listed company. Evita is based at the Canberra, Australia office.
- Adam Zegelin SVP Engineering and Co-FounderAdam Zegelin SVP Engineering and Co-FounderSUMMARY
- Benjamin Levin Chair of the BoardBenjamin Levin Chair of the BoardSUMMARY
Ben Levin founded Level Equity and is a partner and the co-CEO of Level Equity Management, LLC. He has been an investor in growing media, software, and services companies since 1997 and is a frequent speaker on the growth equity industry. Prior to Level Equity he was Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners and previously held positions with Mentmore Holdings Corporation, the private investment arm of a New York City-based family office, and in the mergers and acquisitions division of Salomon Brothers. Ben graduated from Harvard College.
- Jerry Stesel DirectorJerry Stesel DirectorSUMMARY
Jerry is a founding partner of Our Innovation Fund, LP and an Investment Committee member. He has extensive investment banking, legal, and technology investing experience. Most recently, Jerry worked at Deutsche Bank and CBA advising some of Australia’s largest and fastest-growing companies on company transforming transactions. Jerry founded and successfully exited a payment services business in 2016. Jerry holds a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Laws (with Distinction) from UNSW and completed the Executive Management Program at Columbia Business School, New York.
- Peter Nichol Consulting ExecutivePeter Nichol Consulting ExecutiveSUMMARY
Peter has over 25 years of experience in software and service companies from startups to big enterprises in the $1B range. He held the position of CEO at Instaclustr, taking the company from an early-stage startup in 2015 to a team of more than 110 people. Prior to Instaclustr, Peter was GM of Platform Computing, which was acquired by IBM in 2012. He then managed the business for IBM until 2014. He has also successfully managed companies through several business phases including IPO and acquisition by larger companies.
- Ben Bromhead Chief Technology Officer and Co-FounderBen Bromhead Chief Technology Officer and Co-FounderSUMMARY
As Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder at Instaclustr, Ben sets the technical direction for the company. Ben is located in our California office and is active in the Apache Cassandra community.
Prior to Instaclustr, Ben had been working as an independent consultant developing NoSQL solutions for enterprises and was running a high-tech cryptographic and cybersecurity formal testing laboratory at BAE Systems and Stratsec.
- Nick McNaughton Non-Executive DirectorNick McNaughton Non-Executive DirectorSUMMARY
Nick is the CEO of ANU Connect Ventures, the venture arm of the Australian National University. Nick has a long track record of helping to build and grow early-stage companies, and has been a successful angel investor, business mentor, and CEO of a successful investment fund. Nick currently sits on the Board of Entry29, a co-working space for Canberra start-ups and the GRIFFIN Accelerator (also based in Canberra).
- David Kirk DirectorDavid Kirk DirectorSUMMARY
David is the former Chief Executive of ASX-listed Fairfax Media Ltd., where he led the successful investment into a number of internet businesses including Fairfax’s acquisition of Trade Me and Stayz. David has been a growth stage investor in technology-based businesses since 1999. He is Chairman of ASX-listed Trade Me Group Limited and Kathmandu Holdings Limited, a Director of Forsyth Barr Limited—a privately-owned New Zealand investment firm, and a Director of SiteMinder, SMI, and Viocorp.
Prior to entering the corporate world, David enjoyed a highly successful rugby career, captaining the All Blacks to win the World Cup in 1987. He was awarded an MBE in 1988.
David is a Rhodes Scholar with degrees in Medicine from Otago University, and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University.
- Level Equity is a private investment firm. Through its growth equity and structured capital business lines, Level invests in and acquires outstanding growth businesses. The firm has raised $1.7 billion in committed capital in support of this strategy. Level aims to be the investor of choice for entrepreneurs and business with many options for capital.
- Our Innovation Fund, LP is a leading Australian based venture capital firm that invests in innovative high growth technology businesses with world class teams.
- ANU Connect Ventures manages a seed investment fund on behalf of the ANU-MTAA Super Venture Capital Partnership. The fund invests in early-stage commercial opportunities arising out of research at the ANU, other ACT-based research institutions and local R&D companies.
- Bailador is a specialist investor in the information technology and media sectors. The investment team has over 50 years of combined corporate, private equity and expansion capital investing experience, and the Board Directors are experts in their fields, bringing a wealth of capability to the table.