

Two years after its last funding round, it appears that Docker Inc. is looking to raise new capital.
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the pioneer in software containers, which allow companies to encapsulate applications to run on multiple kinds of computers and operating systems, is expected to close a $75 million investment this month. The insiders claim that the funding will increase Docker’s valuation to $1.3 billion. A portion of the capital is supposedly set to go towards building out a sales and marketing team focused on large organizations.
In the event that the information proves correct, the move would represent a natural step for Docker. The enterprise segment stands at the center of the company’s efforts to commercialize its open-source container engine, which is the go-to choice for building and deploying applications in many parts of the development world.
Docker has made several major changes as part of the monetization push. In April, the company released the core open-source components of its platform as the Moby Project, which is maintained separately from the main Docker code repository. Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Solomon Hykes stated at the time that the initiative aims to be what Fedora is to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In other words, it establishes a boundary between the provider’s open-source and commercial efforts.
Docker followed up the launch of Moby by hiring Steve Singh as chief executive officer the following month. Singh is best known for having led Concur Technologies Inc., a provider of travel management software that he sold to SAP SE for $8.3 billion in 2014. Not long after his appointment, Marc Verstaen stepped down from his role as Docker’s executive vice president of products and passed the responsibilities of the position to Hykes.
The Bloomberg report indicated that yet more leadership changes are in the works. According to the sources, Docker plans to replace board members who represent investors with “experts in operations and enterprise sales” to support its monetization effort.
The company’s management team will have their work cut out for them. Besides CoreOS Inc. and traditional virtualization provides, Docker must also overcome competition from the open-source ecosystem.
Third-party projects such as the Kubernetes orchestration framework enable enterprises to run Docker’s container engine at scale without using its commercial offerings. Thanks to Moby, they can deploy the engine in any way they see fit. As a result, Docker will have to put forth a strong value proposition if it’s to realize its monetization plans.
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