In November, graph database startup Neo4j raised $80 million, bringing its total investment to $180 million. With new funding and strong momentum, the startup is announcing its first ever CFO to keep the train rolling.
Neo4j announced Thursday it was adding Mike Asher, who has previously served as CFO at startup HackerRank and Workday acquisition Platfora. The company also announced that Denise Persson, CMO of Snowflake Computing, has joined the company’s Board of Directors.
“Neo4j hired me to help the company continue to be successful as it grows," Asher told Business Insider. "Our leadership team knows that if we maintain focus on product innovation and the success of our customers, we will keep achieving our business goals. We’ve reached the size where it makes sense to have a CFO to help scale those sorts of efforts, so that’s what I’m focused on.”
Asher said he was intrigued with Neo4j after CEO and co-founder Emil Eifrem sold him on the company over a breakfast meeting one day.
Graph databases are built so that users can easily find connections, similar to connect-the-dots. It's used for recommendations, fraud detection and even in planning for space missions. Asher was drawn to the fact that Neo4j was carving out its own niche in the database market, separately from heavyweights like Oracle and Microsoft, and he felt that he joined at just the right time.
"I enjoy starting at new companies and learning all about their market and the challenges and the market and the people," Asher said. "It's always like I'm coming in and it's a Rubik's Cube."
As CFO, Asher will spearhead Neo4j’s financial strategy and operations and focus on growth and scale. Asher, who has over two decades of finance experience at various companies and startups, says Neo4j is in a good place, and he'll be working on Neo4j's plan for the next few years. In total, Neo4j, has raised $160 million.
"I've worked with tech companies for a number of years, starting at Cisco, and going to startups," Asher said. "I've been at a few companies that were in the data world. When I met Emil and he was talking to Neo4j, it sounded very familiar to me, but also a new opportunity because it was creating something from scratch."
One challenge seen by Asher is that the market for Neo4j's graph database market is still at its early stages, and many customers still don't know what to make of it.
Now, larger companies are starting to create graph databases, such as Amazon Web Services' Neptune. But Asher believes that Neo4j has the potential to lead the market, and this will involve some education and helping companies become more aware of the benefits of graph databases.
Also, the 11-year-old company is growing quickly, posing what Asher sees as its biggest challenge. The startup's all-remote workforce is dispersed across the globe, so he says he needs to make sure Neo4j can scale efficiently.
"By the time I showed up, there was a very good core technology, and the company was just starting to scale up in terms of the rest of the org," Asher said. "For me, that's in my sweet spot. There's a really solid foundation, great technology, a great customer list, and now the company is looking to grow and scale."
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