MariaDB has been warned by a bank lender that it may “sweep” its accounts in retaliation for the publication of a private equity bid for the troubled database company, which went public in December 2022 via a SPAC merger with Angel Pond Holdings. At that time, the company’s value was estimated at $672 million. A few days after its SPAC deal closed, MariaDB was trading at $4.11.
MariaDB now has a market cap just under $24 million. Shares last traded this afternoon at 35 cents.
Earlier this week, MariaDB confirmed a possible offer of $37.3 million from private equity company K1 Investment Management to take the recently troubled database vendor into private ownership, reports The Register. MariaDB plc, which is separate from the MariaDB Foundation running the open source database project, told the markets it had received an “unsolicited non-binding indicative proposal to acquire the company’s shares through K5 Private Investors,” a fund controlled by K1. The database company said at the time that its board was reviewing the offer and taking advice.
But early publicity around that offer has provoked a response from one of the company’s lenders. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing this week reported that RP Ventures, a Nordic early stage investment company that lent MariaDB $26.5 million in October last year, delivered a notice of default to the company.
According to the filing, the default arose “as a result of a third party publicly announcing” a non-binding bid for MariaDB of 55 cents per share.
