Kubernetes tooling provider Spectro Cloud Inc. has raised $75 million in fresh funding to enhance its technology.

The startup disclosed in its funding announcement today that Goldman Sachs led the investment. A number of existing backers contributed as well. According to TechCrunch, the Series C raise gives Spectro Cloud a post-money valuation of $750 million.

Kubernetes is an open-source framework that automates much of the work involved in managing software containers. But even with the framework installed, the workflow is often complicated. San Jose, California-based Spectro Cloud offers a platform called Palette that eases several of the container maintenance tasks not covered by Kubernetes’ feature set. 

The first task that the company promises to simplify is the process of setting up container clusters. Palette makes it possible to package a Kubernetes distribution, an operating system and related software modules into a so-called Cluster Profile. When developers wish to create a new Kubernetes environment, they can simply launch a Cluster Profile template instead of assembling the necessary components manually.

The platform’s templating feature also eases the task of detecting misconfigurations. Every hour, Palette scans a Kubernetes deployment for settings that don’t match the Cluster Profile template on which it’s based. The platform alerts administrators if it finds settings that were accidently changed.

In addition to the Kubernetes setup workflow, Palette promises to ease a range of day-to-day maintenance tasks. A so-called rolling update feature makes it possible to upgrade the core components of a Kubernetes cluster without taking workloads offline. In the background, Palette scans for potential cybersecurity issues and occasionally creates backups to ensure important records can be recovered after an outage.

For customers whose requirements are not met by its core feature set, Spectro Cloud offers two specialized versions of its platform. 

The first, Palette Edge, is optimized to power edge computing environments with limited hardware resources. Although Kubernetes usually runs across several servers, Palette Edge provides the option to deploy it on a single machine. There’s also support for K3s, a lightweight Kubernetes distribution that takes up less than 100 megabytes of storage space.

Public sector customers use a version of Spectro Cloud’s platform called Palette VerteX. It’s designed to integrate with FIPS 140-2 security modules. Those are specialized, tamper-proof hardware devices used for tasks such as storing a Kubernetes environment’s encryption keys.

Spectro Cloud says that its latest funding milestone follows three years in which its annual recurring revenue grew “by triple digits.” It counts GE HealthCare Technologies Inc., Nokia Inc. and other large enterprises as customers.

The company will use its newly announced funding round to enhance its platform’s edge computing capabilities. In parallel, it intends to grow its partner network. It will reportedly hire about 30 new employees by year’s end to support the effort.

Image: Spectro Cloud