The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Financial decision · 2014–2018
GitLab's all-in-one DevOps bet: $100M at a $1.1B valuation as GitHub went to Microsoft
Open-core code host turned full DevOps platform raised $100M from Iconiq, GV and Khosla at a $1.1B valuation, months after Microsoft agreed to buy GitHub.
GitLab
What the business is
GitLab is an open-core code-hosting and DevOps platform, founded in 2014, that sells one application spanning source-code management, continuous integration, deployment and monitoring so organizations never stitch nine separate tools together.
Starting capital：More than $145M total raised by September 2018: a $20M Series B in September 2016, a $20M Series C in October 2017, and the $100M Series D led by Iconiq Capital with GV and Khosla Ventures at a $1.1B valuation.
How it started
GitLab was founded in 2014 and was perpetually compared to GitHub as a code-hosting repository. In September 2017, with GitLab 10.0, it declared a bigger mission — uniting development and operations in one user experience — and a year later it was still telling customers it could remove the burden of integrating nine separate tools. In June 2018 Microsoft announced plans to buy GitHub for $7.5B, weeks after GitLab said it was leaving Microsoft Azure for Google Cloud.
What happened
On September 19, 2018, GitLab announced a $100M Series D led by Iconiq Capital, with existing investors GV and Khosla Ventures participating, at a $1.1B valuation — crossing into unicorn territory and taking total funding past $145M. CEO Sid Sijbrandij said the cash would let GitLab become best-in-class in every DevOps software category, while acknowledging that most users still thought of it as version control with a bit of continuous integration. Iconiq partner Matthew Jacobson framed GitLab as a leader taking the broad software development market head-on, and Sijbrandij reiterated GitLab's unusual public ambition to go public on November 18, 2020.
How it ended up
As of September 19, 2018 the round had closed and GitLab had reached a $1.1B valuation with more than $145M raised, still independent and expanding from code hosting into the full DevOps loop; its self-declared IPO ambition of November 18, 2020 remained a target, not a fact.
Background
GitLab is an open-core platform for software development, founded in 2014, that began as a code-hosting repository in the mold of GitHub and kept widening its scope. By 2018 it was selling a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle — source control, continuous integration, deployment and monitoring — as an alternative to teams stitching together GitHub, Jira, New Relic and BlackDuck.
The timing turned favorable in June 2018, when Microsoft announced its $7.5B acquisition of GitHub. On September 19, 2018, GitLab announced a $100M Series D led by Iconiq Capital with GV and Khosla Ventures at a $1.1B valuation — its first explicit valuation and the milestone that made it a unicorn — taking total funding past $145M.
CEO Sid Sijbrandij was candid that most users still saw GitLab as version control with a bit of continuous integration, and that the money would go toward telling a broader story, catching up in newer categories such as monitoring, and making GitLab synonymous with a well-run engineering organization. The company also reiterated a rare public target: listing on November 18, 2020.
What has to be true
- Microsoft's $7.5B GitHub acquisition made every team that wanted an independent code host look at GitLab — a demand shock the raise could fund.
- GitLab's all-in-one pitch removed the integration burden enterprises paid to stitch nine separate tools together.
- Iconiq, GV and Khosla were betting that developer tools — not just social code hosting — had become a core market every software company needed.
- GitLab's open-core model gave it a free, self-hosted wedge that a proprietary suite like GitHub could not match at the low end.
What can be applied
When the category leader gets absorbed, the open challenger gets its funding window — but only if it has already repositioned from clone to a broader platform story.
Aftermath
As of September 19, 2018, GitLab had closed the $100M Series D at a $1.1B valuation with more than $145M raised in total, and remained an independent, San Francisco-based company expanding across the DevOps toolchain. Its CEO reiterated the ambition to go public on November 18, 2020. Whether GitLab could convert version-control users into buyers of its wider platform, and whether the Microsoft-owned GitHub would accelerate or blunt that push, was still unproven at the article's date.
Sources
- GitLab raises $100 million from Iconiq, GV, and Khosla, at $1.1 billion valuation
- GitLab raises $100M from Iconiq, GV, and Khosla, at $1.1B valuation — Hacker News
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