Australia's Buildkite hits $144m valuation with Series A
US-based VCs General Catalyst and OpenView have provided A$28 million ($20 million) in Series A funding to Australian enterprise software player Buildkite at a valuation of about $144 million.
Buildkite specializes in coding tools that help IT teams develop new software more efficiently. Its core offering is a platform that facilitates application development procedures – known as continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) – with improved security at any scale.
The company has more than 1,000 clients, including Shopify and Pinterest. Concurrent with the investment, Jean Michel Lemieux, the CTO at Shopify, will join the Buildkite board.
“A good litmus test for how well a company is run is their approach to CI-CD,” Lachlan Donald, CEO and co-founder of Buildkite, said in a statement. “When CI-CD doesn’t work, it shows throughout the entire organization - teams slow down, products are delayed and customers turn elsewhere. Buildkite helps companies achieve breakthroughs by giving them the ability to scale and have absolute trust that they are releasing the best software.”
Donald noted in a separate statement that Buildkite, founded in 2013, has been able to be patient about seeking investor support due to the company’s success in independently achieving sustainable growth and profitability. He said that OpenView was chosen for its product-led mindset, while General Calayst was chosen for its more diversified experience and industry reach.
“The needs for scale today are completely different from the needs for scale yesterday,” added Mackey Craven, a partner at OpenView. “The global pandemic and the resulting economic uncertainty underline the importance for companies to maximize efficiencies and build for growth. As the world continues to build digital-first applications, we believe Buildkite’s unique approach will be the new enterprise standard of CI-CD.”
VC activity in Australian enterprise software is expanding from the local ecosystem to include more international involvement. The trend has been attributed to global scaling advantages such as lower domestic competition in the early stages, a disproportionately strong local talent base, and familiarity with UK and US markets in terms of language and business culture.
Australian B2B players have also proven successful at leveraging “bottom-up” marketing techniques such as search engine optimization and viral features built into digital products.
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