Aerospike, a startup that built a fast in-memory NoSQL database and has targeted it at advertising applications, has secured $20 million in fresh cash. Now the company harbors ambitions of entering more industries.

Aerospike claims its database is 10 times faster than other NoSQL databases, which circumvent the features of more traditional relational databases. And it can use flash storage as well as the RAM sitting in servers.

The company also announced today that it is making its database available for free under an Apache open-source license.

But other NoSQL databases, like Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, and Redis, have large open-source user communities, and startups that commercialize those technologies have received more and more venture backing in recent years. So making Aerospike a developer favorite could take time and money.

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New Enterprise Associates led the round. Alsop Louie Partners, Columbus Nova Technology Partners, Regis McKenna, and other investors also participated.

Aerospike started in 2009 and is based in Mountain View, Calif. Customers include BlueKai, Komli, Madvertise, MediaV, and Neustar.

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