Neon, Inc.

Neon, Inc. was founded in 2021 with the goal of fundamentally redesigning the PostgreSQL database architecture to meet the needs of modern development environments. The company, established by a team including recognized PostgreSQL contributors and database veterans, developed a cloud-native, serverless PostgreSQL platform that separates storage from compute. This architecture enables scalability, reliability, and developer agility, introducing innovative features such as database branching inspired by Git, point-in-time recovery, automated provisioning, and usage-based pricing.

By 2024, Neon had gained recognition for its mission to make PostgreSQL as universally accessible as cloud storage, focusing on developers and AI-driven workloads. The company raised $25.6 million in Series A funding in August 2024, supported by investors including M12 (Microsoft's venture fund), Abstract Ventures, General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures, and Notable Capital. In May 2025, Neon was acquired by Databricks and became part of its AI-native ecosystem as the division "Neon, a Databricks company." Post-acquisition, Neon continues to operate primarily from New York City and offers products such as the Neon Serverless Postgres Platform and Lakebase, which integrates serverless PostgreSQL with the Databricks lakehouse.

Neon's business model includes a free tier for developers and prototypes, usage-based paid plans, and enterprise subscriptions. The platform primarily targets developers, startup teams, software engineers, product managers, small and medium businesses, and data analysts seeking scalable relational databases without the overhead of managing infrastructure. Additionally, enterprises adopting cloud-native databases and teams deploying AI-driven workloads represent key secondary markets.