The database software company startup founded by Eliot Horowitz and Dwight Merriman was MongoDB.
The business began in 2007 as 10gen, founded by Kevin P. Ryan, Dwight Merriman, and Eliot Horowitz. The founders initially aimed to build a cloud platform using open-source components, but they could not find a database that fit their needs. The team therefore created a document-oriented database, eventually called MongoDB.
MongoDB stores data in flexible document-like records rather than the rows and tables associated with traditional relational databases. That design helped it become a prominent NoSQL system, especially for applications whose data structures change frequently or contain nested information.
A detail often missed is that MongoDB was originally the product, while 10gen was the company. 10gen changed its name to MongoDB, Inc. in 2013. The database later added features such as multi-document ACID transactions, broadening its use beyond its original NoSQL niche.