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Mar 8, 2022 · 17m · top-founders

This Developer Tool Doubled To $240k ARR And Raised at a $14m Post Money Valuation

Luke Feeney · 9m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

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In this interview, host Nathan Latka speaks with Luke Feeney, co-founder of TerminusDB, exploring how the Dublin-based graph database spun out of Trinity College, pivoted to an open-source model, and reached $240,000 in ARR while securing a $14 million post-money valuation.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 38.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 6.2 Guest teaching 5.0 Guest disagreement 2.0 Nathan pushing back 4.4
05100:0010:000:43–3:09 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Origins of TerminusDB from Academic Research Latka pushes on the common pitfall of academic spin-outs where universities retain high equity percentages. Feeney educates Latka on European university spin-out norms compared to Stanford, detailing how they negotiated Trinity College down from standard European rates.3:12–7:17 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Founding Cap Table and Initial Seed Funding Latka explores cap table terms and compares European seed rounds to standard US convertible notes. Feeney gently corrects Latka's US-centric expectations regarding Irish venture capital valuations.7:18–9:20 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Cloud Monetization and Open Source Community Philosophy Latka questions how TerminusDB avoids alienating its open-source community, referencing GitLab's playbook. Feeney explains their hosted cloud model which offers operational convenience without locking features behind proprietary tiers.9:23–12:52 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Founderpath Valuation Tool Promotion Following an ad read for Founderpath, Latka backs into revenue figures and interrogates the valuation and dilution math of their second seed round. Feeney corrects Latka's calculation on total raised versus new capital.12:55–15:36 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Series A Growth Metrics and Engineering Talent Dynamics When Latka probes for code commit activity to gauge traction, Feeney reframes the metric to developers hosting live data backends. Feeney also explains local compensation dynamics in Dublin inflated by US tech giants like Stripe.0:43–3:09 · Guest teaching 6/10 Origins of TerminusDB from Academic Research Latka pushes on the common pitfall of academic spin-outs where universities retain high equity percentages. Feeney educates Latka on European university spin-out norms compared to Stanford, detailing how they negotiated Trinity College down from standard European rates.3:12–7:17 · Guest teaching 5/10 Founding Cap Table and Initial Seed Funding Latka explores cap table terms and compares European seed rounds to standard US convertible notes. Feeney gently corrects Latka's US-centric expectations regarding Irish venture capital valuations.7:18–9:20 · Guest teaching 4/10 Cloud Monetization and Open Source Community Philosophy Latka questions how TerminusDB avoids alienating its open-source community, referencing GitLab's playbook. Feeney explains their hosted cloud model which offers operational convenience without locking features behind proprietary tiers.9:23–12:52 · Guest teaching 4/10 Founderpath Valuation Tool Promotion Following an ad read for Founderpath, Latka backs into revenue figures and interrogates the valuation and dilution math of their second seed round. Feeney corrects Latka's calculation on total raised versus new capital.12:55–15:36 · Guest teaching 6/10 Series A Growth Metrics and Engineering Talent Dynamics When Latka probes for code commit activity to gauge traction, Feeney reframes the metric to developers hosting live data backends. Feeney also explains local compensation dynamics in Dublin inflated by US tech giants like Stripe.0:43–3:09 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Origins of TerminusDB from Academic Research Latka pushes on the common pitfall of academic spin-outs where universities retain high equity percentages. Feeney educates Latka on European university spin-out norms compared to Stanford, detailing how they negotiated Trinity College down from standard European rates.3:12–7:17 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Founding Cap Table and Initial Seed Funding Latka explores cap table terms and compares European seed rounds to standard US convertible notes. Feeney gently corrects Latka's US-centric expectations regarding Irish venture capital valuations.7:18–9:20 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Cloud Monetization and Open Source Community Philosophy Latka questions how TerminusDB avoids alienating its open-source community, referencing GitLab's playbook. Feeney explains their hosted cloud model which offers operational convenience without locking features behind proprietary tiers.9:23–12:52 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Founderpath Valuation Tool Promotion Following an ad read for Founderpath, Latka backs into revenue figures and interrogates the valuation and dilution math of their second seed round. Feeney corrects Latka's calculation on total raised versus new capital.12:55–15:36 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Series A Growth Metrics and Engineering Talent Dynamics When Latka probes for code commit activity to gauge traction, Feeney reframes the metric to developers hosting live data backends. Feeney also explains local compensation dynamics in Dublin inflated by US tech giants like Stripe.0:43–3:09 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Origins of TerminusDB from Academic Research Latka pushes on the common pitfall of academic spin-outs where universities retain high equity percentages. Feeney educates Latka on European university spin-out norms compared to Stanford, detailing how they negotiated Trinity College down from standard European rates.3:12–7:17 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Founding Cap Table and Initial Seed Funding Latka explores cap table terms and compares European seed rounds to standard US convertible notes. Feeney gently corrects Latka's US-centric expectations regarding Irish venture capital valuations.7:18–9:20 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Cloud Monetization and Open Source Community Philosophy Latka questions how TerminusDB avoids alienating its open-source community, referencing GitLab's playbook. Feeney explains their hosted cloud model which offers operational convenience without locking features behind proprietary tiers.9:23–12:52 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Founderpath Valuation Tool Promotion Following an ad read for Founderpath, Latka backs into revenue figures and interrogates the valuation and dilution math of their second seed round. Feeney corrects Latka's calculation on total raised versus new capital.12:55–15:36 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Series A Growth Metrics and Engineering Talent Dynamics When Latka probes for code commit activity to gauge traction, Feeney reframes the metric to developers hosting live data backends. Feeney also explains local compensation dynamics in Dublin inflated by US tech giants like Stripe.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 42.2% · guest 57.8%0:00 · Nathan 42.2% · guest 57.8%3:00 · Nathan 36.5% · guest 63.5%3:00 · Nathan 36.5% · guest 63.5%6:00 · Nathan 25% · guest 75%6:00 · Nathan 25% · guest 75%9:00 · Nathan 57.5% · guest 42.5%9:00 · Nathan 57.5% · guest 42.5%12:00 · Nathan 26% · guest 74%12:00 · Nathan 26% · guest 74%15:00 · Nathan 44.5% · guest 55.5%15:00 · Nathan 44.5% · guest 55.5%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:09 Rejecting code commit framing

Feeney directly dismisses Latka's focus on line-of-code contributors, explaining that database platform value is measured by active data hosting rather than open-source commits.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 2:16 Challenging academic spin-out equity traps

Latka refuses a generic founding narrative and directly challenges Feeney on whether Trinity College retained an unfair equity stake.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 2:29 European versus US university spin-out mechanics

Feeney breaks down the structural differences between progressive US endowment models like Stanford's and defensive European 10 percent equity demands.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 10:19 Deconstructing unit economics into MRR

Latka quickly computes TerminusDB's base MRR from customer volume and pricing tiers before calculating the valuation multiple on their $240k ARR run rate.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Origins of TerminusDB from Academic Research 6625 Latka pushes on the common pitfall of academic spin-outs where universities retain high equity percentages. Feeney educates Latka on European university spin-out norms compared to Stanford, detailing how they negotiated Trinity College down from standard European rates.
Founding Cap Table and Initial Seed Funding 6524 Latka explores cap table terms and compares European seed rounds to standard US convertible notes. Feeney gently corrects Latka's US-centric expectations regarding Irish venture capital valuations.
Cloud Monetization and Open Source Community Philosophy 6414 Latka questions how TerminusDB avoids alienating its open-source community, referencing GitLab's playbook. Feeney explains their hosted cloud model which offers operational convenience without locking features behind proprietary tiers.
Founderpath Valuation Tool Promotion 7425 Following an ad read for Founderpath, Latka backs into revenue figures and interrogates the valuation and dilution math of their second seed round. Feeney corrects Latka's calculation on total raised versus new capital.
Series A Growth Metrics and Engineering Talent Dynamics 6634 When Latka probes for code commit activity to gauge traction, Feeney reframes the metric to developers hosting live data backends. Feeney also explains local compensation dynamics in Dublin inflated by US tech giants like Stripe.

Statements from this episode (11)

Insight
European universities demand 10% equity while Stanford relies on alumni donations
“So Stanford, for example, has gone very progressive on that. So they let them spin out and then expect them to give the money back just in firms of like, you know, you're a billion dollar company. Give us a few million there for an endowment. Whereas Europeans…”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 2:33
Disclosure
TerminusDB negotiated Trinity College Dublin's spin-out equity down to 4%
“And so we had a negotiation. We got them down to about four percent. That's about two percent now.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 2:49
Assertion Supported
European startup valuations trade at a significant discount to US competitors
“And certainly European valuations are a significant discount to us.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 4:47
Disclosure
TerminusDB pivoted to open source because top-down enterprise sales grew slowly
“Like when we came out of university first, we were very much an enterprise sort of company. We tried to do large scale graph installations to solve big enterprise problems, like, you know, predicting how many, how much stock you need to have in your physical w…”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 6:27
Disclosure
TerminusDB sees 700,000 open-source downloads but only 700 cloud users
“So we have about 700 people up on the cloud version, but we have about 700,000 downloads of our open source version as well.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 7:19
Disclosure
Half of TerminusDB's 700 cloud users are paying customers
“I'd say about 50% of those are paying customers and about 50% are on the free tier in the cloud.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 7:35
Disclosure
TerminusDB includes all enterprise features in its free open-source version
“I mean, we're fully open source now. So basically we sell a hosted version of the open source software. We don't have enterprise features that aren't available in the open source right now.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 8:33
Assertion Not checkable as stated
TerminusDB doubled its monthly recurring revenue from $10k to $20k
“We were about 10 K and now we're about 20 K. So we've done about a hundred percent.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 10:42
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
TerminusDB raised a $3.5M seed round at a $10.5M pre-money valuation
“We did a seed then with Volta Ventures in the lead. They're a Dutch VC. And we raised about 3.5 total of a valuation of about 10 pre, 10, 10.5 pre.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 11:02
Insight
Getting 1,000 active developers beats making $100k in early platform revenue
“Well, that's a really good question, you know, cause we're, we'd be more, if you said to me, I could get an extra thousand developers up on the platform building really interesting things versus another a hundred K in revenue. I chose the thousand, thousand de…”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 12:56
Assertion Contradicted
Stripe pays $350k for mid-range software engineers in Ireland
“I mean, I see on these boards on Reddit that Stripe are paying 350 K for mid-range engineers. I mean, that's madness in Ireland.”
Luke Feeney Mar 8, 2022 ▶ 14:53
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