But as revenue has grown, profit has not. The firm posted a net loss of $86.7 million last year, wider than the more than $70 million losses in the previous two years. Marketing, research and administrative costs have all risen, according to the company's prospectus .

Like many high-tech companies, MongoDB has seen explosive revenue growth, posting sales of $101.4 million last year, up from $65.3 million in the year-ago period, and $40.8 million two years prior. MongoDB makes most of its money from software subscriptions and counts more than half of Fortune 100 companies as customers.

MongoDB priced its 8 million-share initial public offering at $24 a share Wednesday night, above the expected range of $20 per share to $22 per share . Shares opened at $33 apiece and closed at $32.07.

The technology company listed its stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol "MDB."

MongoDB rose nearly 34 percent on their first day of trading on Thursday in a $192 million IPO.

CEO Dev Ittycheria said the company is investing for growth.

"The investor enthusiasm was very strong, and we're obviously very pleased," Ittycheria told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. "But it's not about today, it's about the future."

MongoDB's database services are popular among software developers. Twenty-one percent of respondents told industry site Stack Overflow that MongoDB was the most popular database, second only to versions from the dominant technology, SQL, which traces its roots back to legacy technology companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle.

While Ittycheria said he respects the established players, including cloud giant Amazon, and considers most of them partners, he also noted that database technology is one of the only sectors in tech that has hardly been disrupted in decades.

"Most applications today run on a database technology that was introduced in the 1970s," Ittycheria said. "In the '70s, I was using a rotary phone to have a phone conversation. So people are looking for a modern, scalable and flexible platform."

MongoDB was the database that most software developers said they wanted to work with, according to Stack Overflow's survey of 64,000 developers.

As more data moves to mobile phones and the cloud, the overall volume of data that companies need to track is growing, MongoDB said in the prospectus.

"Every application needs a database — an application you run at home, at work or even on your mobile device," Ittycheria said. "So if you think about the explosion of apps ... this is truly one of the largest markets in enterprise software."

MongoDB is backed by Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates. IPO underwriters included Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Allen & Company.

— CNBC's Jordan Novet contributed to this report.