- Chainguard is a startup that helps customers secure their software supply chain.
- It will be valued at $1.1 billion in a new funding round, sources say.
- The startup's investors include Sequoia, Spark Capital, and Amplify Partners.
Chainguard, a startup that boosts the security of customers' software supply chains, is raising a new funding round at a $1.1 billion valuation, Business Insider has learned.
The latest fundraise would triple the startup's valuation from its last funding round, a $61 million Series B last November that valued it at $411 million, according to PitchBook data. Founded in 2021, Chainguard's investors include Spark Capital, Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, The Chainsmokers' Mantis VC, and Banana Capital.
It is not clear how much Chainguard has raised in the 2024 round. Details of this latest round are not yet finalized, and the figures involved are subject to change. Chainguard did not respond to a request for comment.
Chainguard was named as one of BI's startups to bet your career on in 2024 and one of the most promising startups of 2023.
A software supply chain encompasses everything required to create, deploy, and maintain software. It includes components such as operating systems, cloud vendors, and code sources, like open-source projects and codebases.
"Modern software development is best characterized as the process of assembling ready-made components rather than building from scratch. While this leads to much faster development cycles, it also creates cyber exposure if downstream components have been compromised," Insight Partners' Thomas Krane told BI in 2023.
Code dependencies and unvetted third-party software can introduce unnoticed bugs into critical software, leading to potentially significant unintended consequences. Hackers may also target popular software libraries or tools to compromise companies' software supply chains.
CEO Dan Lorenc, along with Kim Lewandowski, Matt Moore, Scott Nichols, and Ville Aikas, founded Chainguard in 2021 to address these issues. Lorenc told BI in 2021 that the inspiration for Chainguard stemmed from his experience at Google, where he saw that even large companies sought deeper insight into their codebases and any potential vulnerabilities.
Chainguard lists Snowflake, GitGuardian, Canva, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise as customers on its website.
"Chainguard establishes trust and gives developers and chief information security officers alike confidence in the software they are running," Redpoint Ventures' Sai Senthilkumar told BI in 2022.