We’re excited to announce that we’ve raised a $25M Series B of funding to accelerate our work of modernizing on-prem software for the Kubernetes era.
We embarked on this journey at the end of 2014 to make on-prem software be less terrible and eventually help it become amazing. Our initial traction and success with early adopters like TravisCI helped us take the first steps in the right direction. Things really started to pick up with the launch of our KOTS product last year, and since then, we’ve been able to build a lot of momentum within our business, team, and community. Now we find ourselves in 2020, well-positioned to help software vendors deliver their Kubernetes apps as private instances into complex enterprise environments.
In just the last 4 quarters we’ve accomplished a lot; having added amazing customers like UiPath, Puppet, Tripwire, Swimlane (and many, many more), and continuing to grow with existing customers like HashiCorp, Snyk, Wickr, CircleCI, and PluralSight. Additionally, hiring amazing folks to our C-team like CPO Mark Pundsack and CRO Dustin Dean who have in turn hired even more amazing folks within their orgs. Finally, we’ve seen continued success with our open source projects, two podcasts (EnterpriseReady & Kubelist) and increased our leadership and engagement in the community.
Even with all of this positive growth and opportunity, there is still a lot left to do! We’ve released several important features and integrations with our core projects KOTS, kURL and Troubleshoot, but this is truly just the beginning. This round of funding will give us the opportunity to fuel that work while reaching more customers and becoming their partner for modern on-prem software delivery.
Fundraising isn’t necessarily something that should be celebrated, but it does provide our customers with some additional validation that 1) Replicated will continue to thrive as an important & independent partner 2) the model of KOTS and modern on-prem software is here to stay.
A Kubernetes Off-The-Shelf Software Future Great Funding Partners for Growth
We specifically believe that Kubernetes Off-The-Shelf Software, as a broad concept, has finally hit some amount of mainstream acceptance. Everyday we speak with software vendors of all sizes who are already leveraging (or planning to) Kubernetes as the substrate for delivering their application into enterprise environments as private instances. These companies range from large equipment suppliers migrating traditional on-prem software applications to Kubernetes, and popular open core software companies transitioning their “Enterprise Edition” to Kubernetes, all the way to SaaS vendors who never thought they’d offer an “on-prem version”.
The common theme is that they have independently concluded that Kubernetes will provide them with the basic platform needed to create a fuller, more automated, on-prem software experience for their customers. What many of these vendors are uncovering is that just as the world of 1st-party SDLCs has shifted away from application-based operations towards platform-based operations, so too will the world of 3rd-party application delivery and management. By doing so, the operation of on-prem software can evolve from a bespoke, manual process where every app is independently operated by IT admins, to a platform-based operations model where IT admins manage Kubernetes, and Kubernetes automatically operates the apps.
At Replicated, we’ve been living for this future for the last few years. We placed our bets early that the world of enterprise software would evolve in this direction because of increased security, portability and automation. As such, we’ve been building the tools that software vendors need to operationalize and scale the way that they deliver these Kubernetes-based applications as private instances to hundreds, or even thousands of enterprise end customer environments.
Great Funding Partners for Growth
The lead for this round, Two Sigma Ventures, and their partner who led the deal, Villi Iltchev, share our vision and are excited to join the board. Villi has extensive experience with modern on-prem software having led the Series B for GitLab a few years ago. Additionally, we’re excited to have several of our existing investors participate in this round as well: Amplify Partners, BoldStart, Heavybit, Plexo Capital, Mucker Capital, Ridgeline Partners and Preston-Werner Ventures. While venture capital firms don’t determine the success of a company, these funds have been incredibly patient and supportive of us as we figured out the right product enhancements that would fuel the growth we’ve seen over the past year. We pick our partners because they understand the value we create and the opportunities in the future. This aligns the interests of our investors, our team, and our customers to ensure that Replicated will be a long-term independent company that they can continue to grow with.
To date, Replicated has helped over one hundred software vendors and thousands of enterprise organizations benefit from faster and easier deployments and simplified application management. The value of streamlining on-prem software delivery and the opportunity to add value to both vendors and their enterprise end customers has never been more clear.
See for yourself: Get a demo or join the team… we’re hiring.