Non-relational database vendor MongoDB (formerly 10gen) has managed to raise $80 million in its latest funding round. This brings the total funding to $311 million, making it the best-financed NoSQL database developer in the world. The previous funding round in 2013 closed at $150 million.

“MongoDB’s flexibility and widespread developer adoption make it the database standard for building modern applications,” said Roelof Botha, MongoDB board member and partner at Sequoia, one of the investors. “The market opportunity is massive and MongoDB is well positioned to be the next legendary database company.”

Mo’ money
MongoDB (from ‘humongous’) develops an open source alternative to SQL databases like Oracle. The software is not built around tables, and avoids using structured query language to manipulate data.

MongoDB’s DBMS is used by over 2,000 customers, including 34 of the Fortune 100. In the beginning of the year, it was crowned Database of the Year by DB-Engines, an industry website that monitors the popularity of 240 database management systems.

The latest funding round was led by a sovereign wealth fund, with participation from Goldman Sachs and existing investors Altimeter Capital, NEA, Sequoia and T. Rowe Price Associates.

“The market has reached a tipping point where most developers and IT organisations realise that modern applications cannot continue to be built on relational database technologies ,” said Dev Ittycheria, president and CEO of MongoDB.

“MongoDB was designed to make it easy to develop applications that require rapid change, massive scale, always-on operation, and support for a large variety of unstructured and semi-structured data, all at significantly lower costs.

“These additional funds mean we can further accelerate the delivery of world-class DBMS technology while scaling the business to meet the needs of our users and customers globally.”

In late December, MongoDB acquired WiredTiger, a US start-up that develops database storage engine technology.