AWS Leads $36M Funding For Kubernetes Startup Weaveworks
Growing at a triple-digit clip, Kubernetes cloud management startup Weaveworks is attracting top- notch investors including AWS, Ericsson and Google Ventures.
Fresh off unveiling a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services, red-hot Kubernetes cloud management startup Weaveworks raised $36.6 million in a new Series C funding round led by the public cloud titan as the company continues to grow at triple-digit clip.
The San Francisco-based startup said the new funding from public cloud and telecommunications market leaders, including AWS, Ericsson, Orange Ventures, Sonae Investment Management and Telekom Investment Pool, “validates” Weaveworks as the primary platform for cloud-native applications, according to CEO Alexis Richardson.
“With two years of triple-digit growth, we are seeing organizations of all sizes adopt GitOps—our breakthrough approach to automating operations, deployment and management of Kubernetes applications,” said Richardson in statement. “Global 2000 companies are adopting Kubernetes everywhere but finding they need more help.”
[Related: Lenovo Will ‘Aggressively Take Back’ Market Share In 2021: Steve Biondi]
Richardson has held executive developer roles at VMware and Pivotal Software before founding Weaveworks in 2014. He also founded Rabbit Technologies in 2009, which was quickly acquired by VMware in 2010. Other top Weaveworks executives include Chief Technology Officer Cornelia Davis, who has 20 years of top technology executive experience at Pivotal Software and EMC.
Weaveworks has now raised $60 million in total funding. Other investors include Google Ventures (GV), the venture capital arm of Alphabet Inc., Accel and Redline Capital.
very pleased to share our funding news with everyone at lasthttps://t.co/hP3G3q9SPE
super validation for our wonderful team of lovely people and for our GitOps vision for Kubernetes
— Alexis Richardson (@monadic) December 8, 2020
Weaveworks’ flagship Weave Kubernetes Platform (WKP) is a configurable platform for applications that use Kubernetes. WKP includes full multi-cloud Kubernetes management and support options plus enterprise GitOps features for accelerated and progressive delivery, add-on management, policy and fleets. The company’s mission is to make it easy for enterprise developers to deploy and operate applications on Kubernetes using GitOps.
Weaveworks, named in CRN’s 2019 Emerging IT Vendors You Need To Know About, will spend the new $36.6 million on boosting its GitOps-powred Kubernetes capabilities and expanding its market presence.
Weaveworks’ Kubernetes platform is built on open source and designed to work alongside Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), further simplifying the adoption of Kubernetes on AWS.
Last week, AWS formed a partnership between Weaveworks’ WKP and Amazon EKS Distro to give customers an AWS-backed Kubernetes option for on-premises and multi-cloud. WKP can now install and manage Amazon EKS Distro and extend it for a secure application platform that can run anywhere.
“With Weaveworks GitOps, enterprise developers have an on-ramp and a standard operating model, delivering automation, policy compliance and security,” said Richardson.
WKP streamlines delivery from development to production, while improving security, compliance and resilience. Combined with its open-source GitOps tools like Flux, EKSctl and Flagger, Weaveworks said the configurable platform is what customers need for modern applications. For developers, WKP includes built-in Workspaces that simplify the on-boarding of teams for secure app development. Along with containers, WKP and GitOps are transforming enterprise IT, enabling modern applications that accelerate revenue, along with standard operational practices that lower risk and cost, according to the company. Weaveworks aims to enables enterprises to scale their cloud-native environment no matter where applications are deployed.
Paul McNamara, vice president of corporate development for Ericsson, said Ericsson is leveraging Weaveworks when working with the world’s largest communications service providers to deliver better consumer services using containerized 5G services. “We are investing in Weaveworks to accelerate the shift to software-defined services that work across data centers, cloud, hybrid cloud and edge environments,” he said in a statement.