UPDATED 14:11 EDT / NOVEMBER 01 2018

CLOUD

Open-source cloud tooling maker HashiCorp bags $100M round at $1.9B valuation

HashiCorp Inc., a startup that makes open-source tools for managing cloud environments and applications, today announced that it has reeled in a $100 million late-stage funding round led by IVP.

IVP is one of two new backers to have participated in the investment, with the other being Bessemer Venture Partners. They were joined by returning investors GGV Capital, Mayfield, Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures. The Series D round values HashiCorp at $1.9 billion, which is quite steep considering that its total outside funding is $179 million.

The valuation is a reflection of the rapid user growth that the startup is experiencing. HashiCorp claims that its cloud automation tools have been downloaded 45 million times in the past 12 months, up from 22 million the previous year.

The startup’s tentpole project is Terraform, a system that enables engineers to automate how they provision hardware resources for cloud applications using templates. There’s also Nomad, a tool that helps manage those applications, and Consul, which provides features for handling network connections. HashiCorp’s fourth major open-source project goes by Vault and is designed to manage cybersecurity-related data assets such as encryption keys.

The startup monetizes the tools with commercial versions that include features designed to ease day-to-day use for enterprises. The paid edition of Terraform, for instance, provides access controls and collaboration capabilities to help large engineering teams manage their work.

HashiCorp’s tools have gained a lot of traction in the enterprise over recent years. The startup counts more than 50 of the Fortune 500 and 100 of the Global 2000 as paying customers, adoption that has enabled it to grow from 130 to 320 employees over the past year.

The new funding will enable HashiCorp to redouble its expansion efforts. But as recent industry developments have shown, making money from open-source software on the run can be challenging even for well-funded companies.

In a blog post, IVP’s Tom Loverro, Sandy Miller, Steve Harrick and Michael Miao cited HashiCorp’s focus on multicloud environments as one of the reasons they’re betting on the startup. HashiCorp provides support for all the major public clouds as well as VMware Inc.’s popular on-premises server virtualization software.

The IVP team noted that more enterprises are using multiple clouds and adopting software containers as well the Kubernetes “orchestration” software for managing containers. Hashicorp, they said, provides a means of consistently programming that infrastructure whether in a company’s data center or in public clouds.

“The maturity around operating the cloud is well-understood and companies are starting to use what’s best for the job,” Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder and co-chief technology officer at HashiCorp, told SiliconANGLE Media’s video studio theCUBE at a recent 50th anniversary event at Mayfield. “Now the challenge is these heterogeneous environments.”

HashiCorp said it will use the new funding to boost its open-source and commercial product development roadmaps, accelerate hiring and step up customer-facing activities such as training.

Hashimoto spoke recently with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, about where the company, the cloud and open source are heading. Here’s the full interview:

Photo: HashiCorp

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU