Crystal City Software Startup Raises $6 Million From Investors

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

A Crystal City-based software startup that received an economic development grant from the Arlington County Board earlier this year has raised $6 million from investors.

Stardog Union, which moved to 1400 Crystal Drive last September, took on funding from venture capital firm Grotech Ventures, as well as existing investors Core Capital and Boulder Ventures. All three invest in software and technology companies.

The injection of cash came from the company’s Series A funding round, the first time startups receive investments from venture capital firms and the first time ownership is offered to those external investors.

Since raising its seed round of early investments in July 2016, Stardog has more than tripled its revenue and secured many recognizable companies as customers. That includes the likes of NASA, Oxford University Press and Bosch.

Stardog Union helps businesses bring together internal data from different sources. At the time of its county grant, CEO and co-founder Kendall Clark told ARLnow that while that process could take a large company like Samsung a week and use 30 people to collate all the data on, Stardog’s technology does the job in a matter of seconds.

“Stardog is uniquely solving the largest unsolved problem in enterprise IT: data silos,” said Steve Fredrick, general partner at Grotech Ventures, in a statement. “They’ve generated substantial traction including some truly amazing logos despite having raised very little capital and having done no marketing to date.”

Stardog received a Gazelle Grant earlier this year a Gazelle Grant, an incentive program from Arlington Economic Development to encourage fast-growing companies to locate in the county. It received $35,000 in return for creating 70 new full-time jobs at its Arlington office and leasing 3,500 square feet of office space.

“We had an incredible year of growth and are excited to have Grotech as a new partner to accelerate further,” Clark said in a statement. As part of the investment, Fredrick has joined Stardog’s board of directors.