# Paul Copplestone

> Paul Copplestone is the New Zealand software engineer and repeat founder who co-founded Supabase with Ant Wilson in 2020 and now serves as its CEO. After building ServisHero and Nimbus for Work in Southeast Asia, he turned a Firebase scaling problem into an open-source Postgres developer platform. His method pairs technical conservatism at the database layer with rapid public launches, a distributed team, and an insistence that developers remain the product's compass.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Supabase
- **Organizations:** Supabase, Nimbus for Work, ServisHero, Entrepreneur First, Y Combinator
- **Nationality:** New Zealand
- **Education:** University of Canterbury, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, Summer 2020 accelerator batch, Y Combinator
- **Known for:** Co-founded three startups: ServisHero, Nimbus for Work, and Supabase., Turned an open-source Postgres real-time project into the foundation of Supabase., Built Supabase as a globally distributed company with employees in more than 50 countries by June 2026.

## Career timeline

- **Before 2015** — Worked in software, including at Accenture, before moving from New Zealand into Southeast Asia's startup scene.
- **2015** — Co-founded ServisHero in Malaysia and served as CTO, building its early marketplace product.
- **2017** — Joined Entrepreneur First in Singapore, where he met future Supabase co-founder Ant Wilson.
- **2018** — Co-founded Nimbus for Work and served as CTO; a Firebase scaling problem there prompted his Postgres real-time experiment.
- **2020** — Co-founded Supabase with Ant Wilson, joined Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch, and launched the open-source Firebase alternative.
- **2025** — Led Supabase as AI coding tools accelerated adoption; the company announced its $100 million Series E in October.
- **2026** — Announced a $500 million Series F at a $10 billion pre-money valuation and released Multigres v0.1 alpha.

## Achievements

- Co-founded three startups: ServisHero, Nimbus for Work, and Supabase.
- Turned an open-source Postgres real-time project into the foundation of Supabase.
- Built Supabase as a globally distributed company with employees in more than 50 countries by June 2026.
- Led Supabase through a $500 million Series F at a $10 billion pre-money valuation in June 2026.
- Helped grow Supabase to nearly 10 million developers and 100,000 GitHub stars by 2026.
- Invests personally in open-source and developer-tool companies.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Supabase announced a $500 million Series F at a $10 billion pre-money valuation, led by GIC, alongside the alpha release of Multigres.
- **2026-06** — Supabase reported nearly 10 million developers, 600 percent year-over-year growth in database launches, and more than 60 percent of new databases launched by AI tools.
- **2026-04** — Supabase's open-source repository passed 100,000 GitHub stars.
- **2026-02** — Announced Hydra's move to Supabase to help build an open warehouse architecture centered on Postgres.
- **2026-01** — Discussed Supabase's evolution in the AI era and its product-led enterprise approach in an interview with Coatue.

## Links

- Website: https://paul.copplest.one/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcopplestone
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/kiwicopple
- GitHub: https://github.com/kiwicopple

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/paul-copplestone
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-25