Turbocharging the shift to the cloud with world-class Kubernetes automation
Why we invested in Kubermatic
The shift to the cloud has dominated enterprise IT for well over a decade now. Startups, established companies, and government agencies alike have discovered how much flexibility and efficiency can be gained from renting instead of owning your IT infrastructure.
The growing need for flexibility and speed in the cloud has created a whole range of software infrastructure solutions that enable cloud native applications to scale rapidly. The containerization of software deployment is a prime example. Docker led the way with containerization on the application level, which has been elevated to enterprise-level scalability with Kubernetes, the container orchestration software originally created by Google.
Kubernetes is incredibly powerful, but it is also complex and hard to manage. This is particularly true for the multi-cloud and hybrid infrastructure setups used by an increasing number of enterprise users.
This is where Kubermatic comes in. The Hamburg-based startup founded by Sebastian Scheele and Julian Hansert provides a powerful platform that lets enterprise customers easily manage complex Kubernetes setups — for multi-cloud, hybrid and edge environments. Kubermatic is the only fully independent solution in the market, giving its customers freedom from vendor lock-in.
Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform’s many features enable its customers to speed up cloud native adoption, boost devops workflows with multi-cloud self-service, automate operations and compliance, and provide unparalleled tooling flexibility. Major customers such as T-Systems and Allianz have recognized Kubermatic’s unique power and are using Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform to scale their cloud operations.
From the very beginning, Kubermatic has been committed to the open source philosophy behind Kubernetes. The company is one of the top open source contributors to the Kubernetes project, a fact that reflects the unparalleled expertise of the company in its space and its dedication to the community.
Sebastian and Julian have bootstrapped their company for most of its existence, a testament not only to their talent and dedication as entrepreneurs, but also the high degree of product-market fit they found early on as well. From the very first conversation we were impressed by their unique expertise, radical customer orientation, and entrepreneurial creativity.
We at btov Partners are very happy to join Kubermatic’s seed round with an investment of $2.3M, extending a previous investment led by Nauta Capital, now bringing the total to $8.3M. With this fresh capital Kubermatic intends to accelerate its product development, build out its international customer base, and expand the scope of its solutions.
While the cloud has taken the IT world by storm, the vast majority of IT workloads still run in on-premise environments. Analysts predict a continuing rapid shift to the cloud, but this will be a multi-year process with many complexities. Kubermatic is perfectly positioned to benefit from this seismic shift, and we are very excited to see what the team will achieve in the future.
Read more about the funding round and Kubermatic on the company’s blog post.
