Docker Desktop’s security features and no server support will expand as a result of the $ 105 million round of funding revealed this week, officials said.
The CEO of Docker Inc. Scott Johnston, who has led the company since it sold Docker Enterprise products to Mirantis and refocused its attention on the Docker Desktop product in 2019, revealed some of the company’s product roadmap plans following Series C round, led by Bain Capital Ventures.
“We’re going to be investing heavily in bringing security left-further left than it already is,” Johnston said, citing a December update to the Docker scan for Log4j vulnerability detection that the company shipped to Docker Desktop 4.3. 1. “We have a [container] build technology as part of our tool set and we put into that build technology the ability to check for vulnerabilities in Log4Shell. … [You’ll] see more of that kind of security built in. “
Docker Desktop, which developers use to build containerized applications on local workstations, will also add a plugin framework, to be unveiled in May, that partners can use to add features to the software. These plugins include intellectual property from container security vendors and tools that facilitate collaboration between multiple laptop developers in one application. Over time, Docker Desktop will also support testing non-server functions before deploying to services like AWS Lambda and WebAssembly compilers, Johnston said.
Docker Inc. also raised. the $ 23 million Series B round in March 2021 and launched its pricing changes to increase its revenue in August. The updated pricing will remain in place despite the additional inflow of money, Johnston said, adding that 80% of Docker’s user base still uses Docker Desktop for free, with Docker Personal edition. Docker now has 56,000 paying customers, and its annual recurring revenue will quadruple in 2021 to 2020, according to a post on the company’s blog this week, despite the previous number of customers and the dollar amount of revenue is not specified.
The result of the new funding for Docker Desktop users is that the company will continue to hire more engineers to deliver the roadmap features Johnston described faster than it could with fewer staff. Johnston said the company plans to double its number this year. The re -launched company started with 68 employees in 2019, and now has 150, according to a company spokesperson.
Atlassian Ventures ’investment is turning heads
Bain Capital Ventures led the Series C round for Docker, but one of its partners, former Symantec CEO Enrique Salem, also led Atlassian Ventures, Johnston said. Salem is a board member at Atlassian. Bain and Atlassian are both new investors in Docker.
Atlassian’s involvement in this round of funding has intrigued industry observers, who are wondering if a merger could be made.
Johnston said the reboot of Docker’s business is a deliberate imitation of the Atlassian model, which targets developers and “bottom-up” adoption in the native, rather than traditional top-down business sales. That tactic has become widely seen as the way for tech companies, some of which, like Splunk and ServiceNow, are faced with the dilemma of an innovator in moving toward a bottom-up approach.
“For the past two and a half years, we’ve been going to school at Atlassian, reading all their stuff, meeting their executives, crawling their website,” Johnston said. “It helps us be smarter in building a product-led go-to-market [strategy]. “
The link between the two companies with this investment could illustrate more, says Larry Carvalho, an independent analyst at Robust Cloud.
“Being part of Atlassian of this funding is really a big deal,” he said. “I still feel that the most likely Docker exit is marketable, and Atlassian might be perfect for that.”
There’s potential value for developers connecting to Docker Desktop using Atlassian’s Agile software development and DevOps tools, said Chris Riley, senior manager of developer relations at marketing tech firm HubSpot.
“Atlassian tools are in the hands of almost every developer out there in some form or another-now I use three different Atlassian tools every day,” he said. “One thing that Docker has always been great at is the documentation and user experience, and that will help to create better consistency between development and production environments.”
However, despite Docker’s reported business growth, both Carvalho and Riley said questions remain about its long -term prospects as a standalone business, as well as competitive challenges from cloud providers and open sources. project built for free what Docker Desktop can charge at larger. organizations.
“I don’t see how they’re part of application security,” Riley said. “Right now, they are doing it with partnerships with [companies] like Snyk, but I could do that on my own without much effort. “
Beth Pariseau, senior news writer at TechTarget, is an award-winning veteran of IT journalism. He will be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @PariseauTT.