JFrog: Helping DevOps Continuously Deploy Software
Originally published January 20, 2016
We’re thrilled to announce our latest investment in JFrog, the leading vendor for managing and distributing artifacts (binary software images). JFrog’s mission: to automate the software development process and make the Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline more efficient in order to help enterprises deliver better quality software, faster. In the developer and DevOps community, the company’s Artifactory, Bintray and Mission-Control products are already well known for changing the way they store and manage artifacts.
Sapphire Ventures will be partnering with JFrog to help them become the standard for artifact management and delivery in the DevOps community.
The evolution of DevOps
JFrog is our first investment in the DevOps market segment, which is quickly growing due to changes in how software is deployed and consumed. Historically, development teams wrote the software code, which was shipped in shrink wrapped CD-ROMs, while IT operations deployed and ran the software. However, with the rapid adoption of Cloud Computing, software is delivered as a service, making it impossible for development and IT operations to work effectively in different silos.
This evolution has given rise to a DevOps market for tools and professionals as more and more enterprises establish DevOps teams comprised of both developers and sysadmins under one manager. These teams are jointly tasked with developing and operating the software as a service, and as a result enterprises are typically able to increase the reliability, stability, resilience and security of the software, while decreasing the amount of time and resources needed to operate the software as a service. Essentially, DevOps teams enable enterprises to better compete in the market by helping them react more quickly to market forces and release new technologies and product features faster.
JFrog’s unique position in the DevOps market
As Sapphire has analyzed the DevOps market and spent time with IT leaders trying to understand their pain points, it has become clear that the number one priority for DevOps teams is to find ways to release software frequently and with fewer bugs.
But, according to CIOs at Sapphire Ventures’ recent CIO Summit where this subject was discussed at length, this is easier said than done, especially in this day and age of globally-distributed software teams that develop software 24/7 in multiple different languages and distribute the software in containers to millions of connected devices. Because of this complexity, most DevOps teams end up using a CI/CD pipeline, which breaks down the software delivery process into stages and enables a constant flow of changes into production via an automated software production line.
And here’s where JFrog comes in. As we learned about the company and talked to countless DevOps teams, we found that JFrog’s Artifactory and Bintray are the most widely-adopted solutions for managing and distributing artifacts in the CI/CD pipeline. In fact, we feel they are really the only solutions in the market that enterprises with large software teams can depend on for managing and distributing their software binary images because these solutions are secure, highly-available and support multiple packages and container registries.
Supporting JFrog’s growth and continued leadership
As a former developer myself, I am especially excited to contribute to making developers more productive and the development process more efficient with this investment. The company already has more than 1,500 paying customers, including seven of the top 10 financial services companies, seven of the top 10 telcos, and eight of the top 10 internet and software companies. With more than 700 million software package downloads a month, in 2015, JFrog was named one of the 100 fastest-growing software companies in the United States by Inc. 5000, the 15th fastest-growing company by the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Fast Private Awards and one of Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in EMEA and Fast 50 in Israel.
We look forward to helping build on JFrog’s impressive growth to date by connecting the company with DevOps teams in our vast enterprise network as well with the over 500 companies in our Fund Investments portfolio in order to help them continually innovate and accelerate growth.
Disclosures:
The information set forth herein is not intended to constitute investment advice and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Ventures does not solicit or make its services available to the public and none of the funds are currently open to new investors. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
The portfolio companies referred to above do not necessarily represent all of the investments made or recommended by Sapphire Ventures, and were not selected based on the return on Sapphire Ventures’ investment in them. It should not be assumed that the specific investments identified and discussed herein were or will be profitable. Not all investments made by Sapphire Ventures will be profitable or will equal the performance of the companies identified above.
