By any measure of unicorn status among startup companies, GitLab Inc. is on the fast track.

The DevOps platform reached the unicorn mark of $1 billion in value in 2018 and then attracted additional investment, which nearly tripled its worth to $2.75 billion entering 2020. GitLab has moved fast because it staked its business on helping other firms move at light speed as well.

“We’re a complete DevOps platform delivered as a single application, and we help people go much faster,” said Sid Sijbrandij (pictured), co-founder and chief executive officer of GitLab. “At Goldman Sachs, for their most important application, they went from two weeks to get it out the door to two hours. That’s the value we can bring because you don’t have to go to 15-point solutions to get your work done.”

Sijbrandij spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the GitLab Commit event in San Francisco. They discussed plans for an initial public offering and GitLab’s “remote-only” workforce.

A transparent company

Results such as those for Goldman Sachs are one reason that the company’s meteoric rise has fueled talk of an imminent IPO. Although Sijbrandij has publicly stated an interest in taking his company public by this November, he was less specific about the timetable for an IPO during his interview with theCUBE.

“We want to become a public company sooner rather than later,” Sijbrandij said. “We think it fits us; we’re a very transparent company. We’ll go public when we’re ready, when the market is ready.”

When GitLab does go public, it will likely find itself as one of the largest and most valuable firms to operate based on a 100% remote work model. Its over 1,000 employees work in more than 60 countries around the world, and they all work from home.

The lack of a centralized office has helped attract employees seeking flexible hours without the headaches of a commute, and GitLab has maintained a retention rate of 85%, according to Sijbrandij.

“It’s going to be the future,” Sijbrandij said. “Companies which make digital products are going to be much more all-remote. You get to attract people wherever they are; you have much more access to talent.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s editorial coverage of the GitLab Commit event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE