The rise of native AI coding tools like Claude Code has fueled its growth.
And these days it’s now used by many for their day job rather than a weekend project, with users at firms like Netflix, LinkedIn, IBM, Google, Microsoft, HP, SAP, Shopify, Meta and Salesforce.
The US$500m round was led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, with support from new investors Stripe and Salesforce, with support from existing shareholders Accel, Y Combinator and Coatue.
The size of shareholdings hasn’t been revealed. Typically, co-founders’ stake has been diluted to somewhere between 10 to 15% by a Series F round (the sixth round of issuing new shares to raise capital).
While big database players like Oracle are still firmly ensconced, Copplestone and Wilson’s thinking is that every software revolution – in this case, AI and vibe coding – allows for disruption in the underlying database layer.
Investors agree.
Supabase raised US$150,000 in pre-seed funding in late 2020, and things quickly snowballed from there with a US$6m seed round the same year, followed by US$30m (2021), US$80m (2022), another US$80m (2024) and US$200m (2025) rounds – the latter at a US$2b valuation.
The AI-powered super ex-pats
Copplestone’s SupaBase is now top-of-the-pops among a raft of Kiwi ex-pats who have founded or co-founded AI firms.
The posse includes:
Alex Kendall, the London-based co-founder and chief executive of Wayve, the maker of the self-driving tech that steers Uber’s first robotaxis. In February, Wayve raised US$1.5b at a US$8.6b valuation from Uber and other investors (including NZ’s Icehouse Ventures, which chipped in $12.5m).
Dave Ferguson, the San Francisco-based co-founder and co-chief executive of another autonomous driving startup, Nuro. Last August, Nuro raised US$203m at a US$6b valuation from backers including Nvidia (Icehouse again got its foot in the door, chipping in $5m).
Hamish McKenzie, the San Francisco-based co-founder and “chief writing officer” at Substack, which would be deemed AI if you squint your eyes (it now offers a raft of artificial intelligence tools for workflow). Last July, Substack raised US$100m at a $1.1b valuation (Icehouse again chipped in $5m).
Those in the cheaper seats include Adrian Macneil, the former Treasury software developer, now relocated to Silicon Valley, who recently raised $40m at an undisclosed valuation for his physical world AI start-up Foxglove, Harry Mellsop, whose early stage firm Antioch, which operates in a similar field and recently raised $15m at a $102m valuation and Nic Lane, co-founder of UK AI-training start-up Flower Lab, which raised US$20m at a US$100m valuation.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
