Convex, Inc. is a Delaware-incorporated reactive backend platform founded in 2021 by James Cowling, Jamie Turner, and Sujay Jayakar (formerly principal engineers at Dropbox's Magic Pocket storage system).
Convex bundles a reactive document database, server functions, real-time subscriptions, file storage, scheduled jobs, full-text search, and vector search into a single TypeScript-first developer experience - aiming to replace the standard React-Postgres-Redis-WebSocket stack with a single end-to-end type-safe runtime. Operational headquarters are in San Francisco with a remote engineering team.
Convex raised a 26 million US dollar Series A led by a16z in 2022 and a 50 million US dollar Series B led by Sequoia in 2024, bringing total funding above 80 million US dollars. The product is in heavy use across AI-native startups, hackathon winners, and React/Next.js shops looking to escape backend boilerplate.
The legal entity is Convex, Inc., a Delaware C-Corporation with its registered agent at the Corporation Trust Center in Wilmington.
Convex sits at the open-core edge of the dev-tools spectrum: substantial portions of the runtime are open source under MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses (the convex Rust client, the TypeScript SDK, parts of the runtime), while the multi-tenant cloud control plane and the proprietary reactive query engine internals remain closed source.
The capital stack is conventional Delaware preferred-stock: pre-seed SAFEs in 2021, priced Series A led by a16z in 2022, priced Series B led by Sequoia in 2024. Each priced round issued a new series of convertible preferred stock with 1x non-participating liquidation preference, weighted-average anti-dilution, pro rata rights, and standard NVCA voting/IRA/ROFR documentation.
The option pool was refreshed at each priced round - Convex's competitive hiring across the Bay Area distributed-systems pool means a 15-20 percent option pool is plausible, with top-up costs paid pre-money by existing common holders. The 409A valuation is refreshed annually and after each material round; common stock is priced at a 25-35 percent discount to the latest preferred for a Series-B-stage company.
Convex does not have super-voting founder shares - the company is too early to pre-position for an IPO.
The OSS components are governed by a Contributor License Agreement that grants Convex, Inc. broad relicensing rights, which means the company can adjust licensing posture if cloud-provider competition becomes existential. Trademarks (the Convex wordmark and logo) are USPTO-registered to Convex, Inc.
Delaware is the only sensible jurisdiction: a16z and Sequoia checks on the cap table assume Delaware default rules; the Chancery court has the deepest preferred-stock case law; QSBS Section 1202 requires a domestic C-Corporation; and the eventual exit will be cleaner from a Delaware C-Corp than from any alternative.
Use post-money SAFEs for pre-seed and seed checks under roughly 5 million US dollars total. Convert at the next priced round at the better of cap or discount. Convex followed this exact pattern: SAFEs at pre-seed, priced Series A led by a16z.
Reactive-backend companies tend to raise larger rounds earlier than pure SaaS because of distributed-systems engineering costs, so SAFE stacking can produce more dilution at the Series A than founders expect. Model conversion at multiple Series A scenarios before stacking SAFEs.
Every institutional VC requires Delaware. The Chancery court's preferred-stock case law is decisive on liquidation preference disputes - which matter more in capital-intensive infrastructure companies because preference stacks can grow large. QSBS Section 1202 treatment requires a domestic C-Corp, which Delaware is the natural default for.
Wyoming's LLC privacy is irrelevant once an institutional cap table is filed.
The standard pattern is to release SDKs and client libraries under MIT or Apache 2.0 to maximize adoption (developer-tool products live or die by SDK quality and license friendliness), while keeping the multi-tenant control plane, the core query engine, and the storage layer closed source.
A Contributor License Agreement governs external SDK contributions and grants the Delaware C-Corp broad relicensing rights, which preserves optionality if cloud-provider competition forces a license change in the future.
Four-year vesting with a one-year cliff is universal at any Sequoia-led round. Double-trigger acceleration on change of control - acquisition plus involuntary termination within 12 months - is the standard Sequoia term sheet. Single-trigger is rejected as disruptive to acquirer retention. 83(b) elections within 30 days of restricted stock issuance are mandatory.
Repurchase rights at fair market value let the company reclaim unvested shares from departing founders, and these rights remain in place through Series B and beyond.
