Ten years after start in Ukraine, GitLab lands on Nasdaq at $11bn valuation

Ten years after start in Ukraine, GitLab lands on Nasdaq at $11bn valuation
Set up as an open source project in Ukraine in 2011, GitLab platform is designed to “maximize the overall return on software development” and listed on Nasdaq with a valuation of $11bn on October 14. / wiki
By East West Digital News in Moscow October 15, 2021

GitLab (‘GTLB’), a San Francisco-based open-source software startup founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Dmitry Zaporozhets and Dutch-born Sid Sijbrandij, made its debut on the Nasdaq at a valuation of $11bn on October 14, reports East-West Digital News (EWDN).

Priced at $77 late the day before, the stock started trading on the 14 at $94.25, pushing GitLab’s market cap to $13.5bn, reports CNBC. This is about 58 times annualized revenue, which would put the company at the fifth place among 58 companies in the Bessemer Cloud Index.

GitLab raised some $650mn in the offering. Over $150mn of additional stock were purchased from an entity affiliated with Sijbrandij.

Using the DevOps application software development methodology, the GitLab platform is designed to “maximize the overall return on software development” within organizations. It delivers software “faster and efficiently, while strengthening security and compliance.”

“With GitLab, every team in your organization can collaboratively plan, build, secure, and deploy software to drive business outcomes faster with complete transparency, consistency and traceability,” the company claims.

GitLab’s revenue in the second quarter of 2021 jumped to $58mn, up 69% from a year earlier. A net loss of $40.2mn was recorded in the latest quarter, as the company spends around 75% of its revenue on sales and marketing, according to CNBC.

GitLab started as open source project in Ukraine in 2011. Two years later, Zaporozhets and Sijbrandij started bootstrapping GitLab as a company.

Incorporated in 2014, the company went through Y Combinator in early 2015. It secured several rounds of funding in the following years, including a $100mn capital infusion in 2018 and a $268mn Series E round in 2019, which valued the company at $2.75bn.

In November 2020 GitLab saw its valuation jump to $6bn as it organized a $195mn secondary sale.

 

This article first appeared in East-West Digital News (EWDN), a bne IntelliNews partner publication.

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