Venture Kick, a private philanthropic initiative, provides as much 150,000 Swiss francs in pre-seed funding to Swiss startups and offers structured, entrepreneurial training to build robust, winning businesses. Entrepreneurs pitch for finance as many as three times, as they compete for increasing amounts of funding at each stage. Founders gain direct feedback from the expert juries and access to an international network of successful entrepreneurs and investors. Venture Kick has supported 600 Swiss startup projects with 24.9 million francs to date. Supported projects have incorporated as 454 active companies, creating 6,033 jobs, and attracting 2.49 billion francs worth of subsequent investment. Companies founded by Venture Kick alums represented 55 percent of the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award 2018.  In 2019 Venture Kick will support idea-stage startup projects with 4.35 million francs, to bring Swiss science to global markets.

Venture Kick

Greylock Partners invests in entrepreneurs that focus on consumer and enterprise software companies. The firm invests in companies that define new markets, including Airbnb, AppDynamics, Apptio, Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET), Cloudera, Docker, Dropbox, Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD), Medium, Nextdoor, Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), Pandora (NYSE: P), Pure Storage, and Workday (NYSE: WDAY). It was founded in 1965 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Greylock

Shasta Ventures invests in startups in sectors. Their program consists of a proven methodology and a set of comprehensive playbooks that dive deep into the obstacles and challenges of early-stage startups. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to early-stage, so this agile program allows founders to tap into the resources they need when they need them.

Shasta Ventures

Juniper Networks develops and sells products and services, which together provide its customers with network infrastructure. It aims to create innovative products and solutions that meet the growing demands of the connected world.

Juniper Networks

Polytech Ventures are an early stage VC firm based in Switzerland with a strong international focus. Their strategic location at EPFL in Lausanne grants us access to one of the most dynamic and recognized innovation centers in the world

Polytech Ventures

Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, edge, 5G, autonomy, cybersecurity, client & gaming, enterprise applications, silicon design and manufacturing, and a wide range of other disruptive technologies.

Intel Capital

Bain Capital Ventures invests in seed to growth-stage startups that are using tech to disrupt existing markets or create entirely new ones.  The firm invests from seed to growth in enterprise software, infrastructure software, and industries being transformed by data.  Bain Capital Ventures has helped launch and commercialize 200-plus companies since 2000, including investments in DocuSign, Jet.com, Kiva Systems, LinkedIn, Rapid7, SurveyMonkey, Taleo, and TellApart. Bain Capital Ventures has more than $5.2 billion of assets under management with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Boston.

Bain Capital Ventures

Blue Cloud Ventures (BCV) is a software-focused growth equity venture capital firm based in New York City.  The fund targets investments in leading SaaS, infrastructure and open source software companies. BCV offers entrepreneurs an alternative to raising a traditional growth round by being flexible on amount invested, ownership requirements, board representation and exit horizon. BCV supports entrepreneurs in raising the optimal growth round and enables early-stage investors to double down on their most promising companies.

Blue Cloud Ventures

IBM is a technology and innovation company that offers a wide range of technology and consulting services; a broad portfolio of middleware for collaboration, predictive analytics, software development, and systems management. It offers services across AI, machine learning, cybersecurity, analytics, DevOps, and more, helping businesses innovate and automate processes.

Juniper Ventures is a private equity firm specializing in investments in management buyouts and recapitalizations.

Juniper Ventures

Dell Technologies Capital is the investment arm for Dell Technologies.  We’ve invested in over 100 companies that push the envelope on digital technology for enterprises and consumers.  We are a team of world-class investors who help our companies succeed.  We focus on early-stage investments with passionate founders. Our companies gain unique access to the go-to-market capabilities of Dell Technologies. For more information visit www.delltechcapital.com

Dell Technologies Capital

Intel is building on its unrivaled history of innovation to power the future of computing and communications. Intel's ambitions? A world that runs on Intel. Intel is doing this by helping its customers find the technologies and solutions that allow them to transform their businesses and gain market advantage. And it all starts with data. Intel is on a journey from a PC-centric company to a data-centric company. Intel's unmatched depth of experience and scope of vision allows it to dream big, to create a world where Intel powers the future of computing and communications—including powerful processors and accelerators that unlock the full potential of data. Intel continuously delivers advances in performance, power, and connectivity across a diversity of data-centric workloads, so its customers can harness the raw power of data. Intel's innovations span architecture, memory, software, and security to help develop transformative products and experiences for its customers. Collectively, Intel's 107,000 employees worldwide are enabling amazing experiences in 5G, artificial intelligence, driverless cars, and much more.

Intel

Akka

Akka is a platform to build and run apps that are elastic, agile, and resilient. Industry titans and disruptors rely on Akka when application responsiveness must be guaranteed. Engineering teams use a simple SDK and powerful libraries to build transactional, durable, and real-time services that distribute logic and data together. Operations are fully automated in serverless and BYOC environments, and a self-hosted option is available.

Lightbend provides a cloud-native microservices platform for building distributed applications. The company's flagship product is Akka, a toolkit for developing concurrent distributed applications based on the actor model. Akka enables the creation of highly concurrent, distributed, and fault-tolerant event-driven applications for Java and Scala. In 2022, Lightbend changed Akka's license from Apache 2.0 to the Business Source License (BSL) 1.1, requiring paid licenses for companies with over USD 25 million in annual revenue to use Akka in production.

Lightbend Changes Akka License and Is No Longer Open Source

Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Lightbend with the 2022 North American Serverless Computing Company of the Year Award for Offering Serverless Solutions to Build Data

Build, Operate, and Secure Distributed Applications

Lightbend switches Akka licensing model to better support open-source development

Building a case for buying a Lightbend subscription for the Akka Platform.

Lightbend Changes Its Software Licensing Model for Akka Technology

Lightbend Changes Its Licensing Model For Akka Technology

App Developer Magazine

Tools that streamline software development

DevOps Toolchain

Lightbend is an enterprise software company that provides cloud-native microservices frameworks for building distributed systems.

Building future-ready applications in the cloud

Cloud-native Tech

Lightbend

Lightbend launches Akka 3 to make it easy to build and run apps that react to change; rebrands company as Akka

Lightbend provides a cloud-native microservices platform for building distributed applications. The company's flagship product is Akka, a toolkit for developing concurrent distributed applications based on the actor model. Akka enables the creation of highly concurrent, distributed, and fault-tolerant event-driven applications for Java and Scala. In 2022, Lightbend changed Akka's license from Apache 2.0 to the Business Source License (BSL) 1.1, requiring paid licenses for companies with over USD 25 million in annual revenue to use Akka in production.
Lightbend also offers Kalix, a serverless-based managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution that simplifies cloud-native application development. Kalix manages aspects of building scalable, data-centric microservices and APIs, eliminating the need for databases, caches, service meshes, and API gateways. The platform supports traditional Key Value state models as well as Event Sourcing and CQRS, enabling the development of large-scale high-performance applications. In February 2023, Frost & Sullivan recognized Lightbend with the 2022 North American Serverless Computing Company of the Year Award for Kalix.
The company provides various tools and services to support the development and deployment of reactive applications. These include Lightbend Telemetry for monitoring and insights, and the Lightbend Academy, which offers training courses on Akka and reactive architecture. Lightbend reported revenue of USD 20 million in 2021 and has raised approximately USD 80 million from investors.

Sonar is a suite of software quality assurance tools designed to help developers produce clean, secure, and reliable code. The company's flagship product, SonarQube, is an open-source platform for continuous code quality inspection. It performs automated code reviews using static analysis to detect bugs, code smells, and security vulnerabilities across more than 30 programming languages. SonarQube integrates into the development workflow, providing real-time feedback during code reviews and enforcing quality gates to ensure only code meeting predefined standards moves forward in the pipeline.
In addition to SonarQube, Sonar offers SonarCloud, a cloud-based version of the platform, and SonarLint, an IDE extension that provides immediate feedback to developers as they write code. These tools work together to support Sonar's "Clean as You Code" methodology, which aims to maintain high code quality standards throughout the development process. Sonar's solutions go beyond simple error detection, addressing deeper issues that may be overlooked by both human reviewers and AI coding assistants. The platform offers features such as code coverage analysis, duplication detection, and maintainability metrics to provide a comprehensive view of code health.

Sonar Source

<div>
 
 Asana is a cloud-based work management platform that helps teams organize, track, and manage their work. Founded in 2009, Asana provides tools for project and task management, collaboration, and workflow optimization. The platform allows users to create projects, assign tasks, set deadlines, share files, and communicate with team members in real-time. Asana's interface offers multiple views including lists, boards, calendars, and timelines to visualize work in different formats.
 
 
 
 
 Key features of Asana include customizable workflows, automation capabilities, reporting dashboards, and goal tracking. The platform aims to reduce &quot;work about work&quot; - time spent on work coordination rather than core job functions. As of March 2023, Asana reported that knowledge workers were spending 58% of their day on work coordination tasks. To address this, Asana provides tools to streamline processes, automate routine tasks, and improve cross-functional collaboration.
 
 
 
 
 Asana offers both free and paid subscription plans. The free Basic plan includes unlimited tasks, projects, messages and file storage for up to 15 team members. Paid plans start at USD 10.99 per user per month (billed annually) and offer additional features like advanced reporting, custom fields, forms, and admin controls. Asana can be accessed via web browser or mobile apps for iOS and Android.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 
 Asana serves over 135,000 paying customers and millions of free users across more than 200 countries and territories. Notable enterprise customers include Amazon, Affirm, Japan Airlines, and Sky.
 
</div>

Asana

<div>
 
 GitLab is an open-source DevOps platform that provides tools for managing the entire software development lifecycle. Founded in 2011, GitLab offers a Git-based repository management system along with integrated features for continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), project management, security scanning, and more. The platform allows developers to collaborate on code, track issues, and deploy applications from a single interface. GitLab's core product is a web-based Git repository manager that includes features like issue tracking, analytics, and a wiki. With each commit or push, GitLab enables developers to trigger builds, run automated tests, and deploy code.
 
 
 
 
 GitLab differentiates itself by offering a complete DevOps solution out-of-the-box, with built-in CI/CD capabilities, whereas competitors often require third-party integrations for similar functionality. The platform supports multiple stable branches beyond the master branch, advocating for a workflow that emphasizes reliability over speed. GitLab provides tools for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning to monitoring, allowing teams to manage all stages of software development within a single application. As of October 2022, GitLab reported quarterly revenue of USD 113 million with 69% year-over-year growth.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 
 GitLab has gained traction among enterprise customers, with notable users including Goldman Sachs, T-Mobile, and Lockheed Martin. The platform is particularly popular in China, where a 2021 JetBrains survey found that 57% of respondents used GitLab for artifact/repository management, compared to 35% for GitHub. In March 2021, GitLab created a local Chinese company called JiHu to expand its presence in the country. GitLab has also formed partnerships to enhance its offerings, including integrations with platforms like Asana, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Gmail. The company's focus on open-source has led to partnerships within that community, offering free enterprise plan features and up to 50,000 CI minutes for organizations or smaller teams working on open-source software.
 
</div>

GitLab

CloudBees provides a software delivery platform for enterprises, enabling them to continuously innovate and deliver software at scale. Founded in 2010, CloudBees offers a suite of products that automate and streamline the entire software development lifecycle, from continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to release orchestration and feature management. At the core of CloudBees' offerings is CloudBees CI, built on Jenkins, the widely-used open-source automation server. CloudBees CI provides flexible, governed CI/CD capabilities for enterprises.
The company's product portfolio also includes CloudBees CD for release orchestration and automation, CloudBees Feature Management for progressive delivery and feature flagging, and CloudBees Software Delivery Automation (SDA) which combines CI, CD, release orchestration and feature management into an integrated platform. CloudBees SDA aims to connect tools and functions across development, operations and shared services teams to optimize the software delivery process. In September 2022, CloudBees acquired ReleaseIQ to expand its DevSecOps capabilities with a low-code release orchestration and visibility solution.
CloudBees' platform is designed to address the needs of modern software development organizations adopting CI/CD and DevOps practices. It provides capabilities for unified governance, visibility, security compliance, and risk mitigation in software delivery. The platform can be deployed on-premise or in major public cloud environments, offering flexibility to support diverse software portfolios including classic, client-server, containerized, web, mobile, IoT and embedded applications.

CloudBees

BigPanda is a company specializing in Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps). Founded in 2012 by Assaf Resnick and Elik Eizenberg, BigPanda offers an AI-powered platform that helps IT Operations, Network Operations Center (NOC), and DevOps teams detect, investigate, and resolve IT incidents more efficiently. The company's core product is an Incident Intelligence and Automation Platform that leverages machine learning to correlate alert data streams from various infrastructure, applications, and services into actionable incidents.
BigPanda's platform aims to reduce the noise in IT alerts, improve the signal-to-noise ratio, and automate incident management processes. It integrates with various IT tools and systems, including ticketing systems, ITSM tools, incident response tools, and collaboration platforms. The company's Open Box Machine Learning technology enables customers to achieve high correlation rates on alert volumes, typically reducing millions of IT events to a manageable number. The company claims that its median customer realizes an 80% event noise reduction within the first eight weeks of implementation.
The platform offers features such as alert aggregation, event correlation, root cause analysis, and automated incident triage. It also provides unified analytics dashboards for end-to-end visibility of IT environments. BigPanda's solution is designed to help organizations reduce mean-time-to-resolution (MTTR) of IT incidents, improve service availability, and support digital transformation initiatives. The company operates on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, eliminating the need for on-premises installations.

BigPanda

Platforms that help companies with software development workflows such as analyzing requirements, planning development schedules, and building roadmaps.

Desktop and web applications for writing code, which also offer features for intelligent auto-complete and code generation capabilities using AI. This segment also include platforms that provide tools for version control and hosting code.

Platforms to automate software deployment into production environments that are hosted either on-premise or on the cloud, along with feature management capabilities that help developers control the availability of features in an application.

Platforms for developers to monitor running software and track processes; helping identify crashes and errors and resolve them.

Platforms to test and debug software, which also feature AI-based tools to automate testing workflows.

Companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for DevOps

Platforms offer AI-based code completion and other tools to help automate testing workflows

Uses generative AI for code completion and generation features offered by certain code editors

Its platforms are available under a B2B SaaS model

Lightbend is an enterprise software company that provides cloud-native microservices frameworks for building distributed systems.\Lightbend specializes in building reactive, scalable, and resilient applications, offering a suite of products to cater to these needs. Its flagship products include Akka, which provides a toolkit and runtime for developing distributed and fault-tolerant systems, and Lagom, a reactive microservices framework that simplifies the creation of microservices-based applications. These tools enable developers to build robust, highly concurrent applications that can handle the demands of modern, distributed computing environments. Additionally, Lightbend offers Play Framework for creating scalable web applications and tools like Lightbend Telemetry and Lightbend Console for monitoring and managing application performance in real time.Lightbend follows a subscription-based sales model.Key customers and partnershipsLightbend’s customers operate in industries such as entertainment, energy, financial services, retail, and consulting. Notable customers include DHL, IBM, Oracle, Verizon, Cisco, Deliveroo, and John Deere.Some of Lightbend’s strategic partners are Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cognizant, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft Azure, Hexaware, YoppWorks, and Red Hat. Its Platinum partners include Bahwan CyberTek, Applaudo, Mind Consulting, VirtusLab, Thornton Tomasetti, and Lunatech.Lightbend has acquired two companies; OpsClarity (2017) and BoldRadius (2016).Funding and financialsLightbend’s latest funding was in November 2021 from a USD 6.9 million venture round.

SingleStore is a company that provides a distributed SQL database platform for real-time analytics and operational applications.SingleStore’s platform combines the scalability of NoSQL with the querying capabilities of SQL. It enables organizations to ingest, process, and analyze large volumes of data in real-time, making it ideal for applications that require fast and accurate data processing. SingleStore solves the problem of handling massive amounts of data and delivering real-time insights for use cases such as real-time analytics, operational analytics, and high-velocity transactional applications.SingleStore's competitive advantage is its ability to handle analytical and transactional workloads in a single platform. It allows businesses to consolidate their data infrastructure, simplifying management and reducing operational costs.SingleStore operates with a sales model that includes direct sales and partnerships with technology and solution providers. It offers different pricing and licensing options tailored to the needs of its customers, including subscription-based models.Key customers and partnershipsSingleStore serves some of the largest tech and non-tech enterprises across various industries, including Comcast, Cisco, Akamai Technologies, Fiverr, Goldman Sachs, Sony, Siemens, Hulu.SingleStore partners with all major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud) and has technology partnerships with Dell, Red Hat, Intel, HP Enterprise, and Looker.Funding and financialsAs of June 2023, SingleStore’s latest fundraising was in October 2022 from a USD 30 million Series F round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Prosperity7 Ventures. The funds were slated to fuel SingleStore’s growth and various strategic initiatives.

SingleStore

Platform9 is an open-distributed cloud company that offers solutions for managing hybrid clouds, Kubernetes, and more. Platform9 offers several products and solutions, including Managed Kubernetes, Managed OpenStack, and Managed Bare Metal.Managed Kubernetes allows businesses to deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters across any infrastructure, while Managed OpenStack offers a simplified way to deploy and manage private clouds. Managed Bare Metal enables businesses to run Kubernetes, OpenStack, and other workloads on dedicated hardware with bare-metal performance.Platform9 claims to deliver a seamless Kubernetes experience across any infrastructure. Platform9's SaaS-managed Kubernetes solution offers a single view to manage Kubernetes clusters running on any cloud or on-premises infrastructure, including bare metal servers, vSphere, and public clouds such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure, providing customers with a unified Kubernetes experience. In addition, Platform9 offers automated security patching, on-demand upgrades, self-healing clusters, multi-version support, and audit logging.Platform9 has a subscription-based sales model. It offers its services on a pay-as-you-go basis, with pricing based on the number of managed nodes or instances, with optional add-ons for additional features and support.Key customers and partnershipsPlatform9 targets enterprise customers who run and manage Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies on distributed cloud services, whether on-premises or in the public cloud. Its customers typically include large organizations with complex IT environments, such as financial services, healthcare, technology, and retail companies.As of mid-2022, Platform9 catered to more than 60 enterprise clients and powered 40,000 nodes across private, public, and edge clouds.Platform9 has partnerships with various cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Additionally, in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32723">August 2024</a>, Platform9 partnered with Fairwinds, a managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service provider, to tackle issues related to Kubernetes over-provisioning and cost management costs in public cloud deployments.

Platform9

Mirantis is a technology company that provides cloud-native software and services to help businesses modernize their IT infrastructure.Mirantis specializes in open-source software, focusing on Kubernetes, OpenStack, and related technologies. Its core offering is the Mirantis Cloud Native Platform, a managed Kubernetes service that provides a complete set of tools for deploying and managing containerized applications. The platform helps organizations adopt and scale Kubernetes quickly and easily, with features like automated provisioning, integrated monitoring, and self-service access to resources. Mirantis also offers professional services including consulting, training, and support for Kubernetes, OpenStack, and related technologies.Mirantis sells its products and services through a subscription-based model. Customers can choose from various annual subscription plans, depending on their needs.Key customers and partnershipsMirantis focuses on enterprise customers who deploy and manage large-scale private clouds. Some of its high-profile customers include Volkswagen Group, Société Générale, S&amp;P Global, Paypal, Volkswagen, and GSK.Mirantis also has technology partnerships with several companies, including Arm, Cisco, Entrust, and Fujitsu, and hardware vendors like Dell EMC, Intel, and Supermicro.

Mirantis

Rafay Systems is a cloud-native platform that automates deployment, life cycle management, and scaling of containerized applications across all cloud infrastructure.Rafay's platform provides enterprises with the tools to deploy and manage containerized applications, microservices, and serverless functions in a scalable and efficient way. The platform provides features including multi-cluster management, automated workload scaling, automated application recovery, and granular application-level access controls. Rafay also provides a Kubernetes-native API gateway that simplifies managing and securing microservices, and includes capabilities to include support for graphics processing unit-based workloads.Additionally, Rafay Systems <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29580">offers an AI suite</a> to simplify AI application development and deployment. This suite includes pre-configured LLMOps Playgrounds, a turnkey MLOps pipeline, central management of LLM providers and prompts, and AI data source integrations and governance. It also offers a cost optimization suite to help IT professionals manage Kubernetes expenses with dynamic cluster scaling, auto-rightsizing, policy application, and simplified infrastructure.Rafay has a subscription-based sales model and offers its platform as a service. The pricing is based on the number of clusters, nodes per cluster, and the amount of data transferred.Key customers and partnershipsRafay’s target customer segments are enterprises, service providers, and software vendors. Some of its notable clients include Verizon, Equinix, Samsung, Moneygram, and the US Air Force.In 2022, Rafay launched its Technical Alliance Program (TAP), which brings together technology and solutions providers to develop joint solutions to simplify and streamline Kubernetes management and operations. Partners of the program include GitLab Inc., F5 NGINX, MinIO, New Relic, and Sysdig. Meanwhile, Rafay’s public cloud and managed Kubernetes partners include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle.

Rafay Systems

Docker, Inc. is a technology company developing productivity tools centered around Docker, a software container platform that automates the deployment of code inside containers.Docker, Inc's major commercial products include Docker Hub, a central repository for containers, and Docker Desktop, a GUI application that enables Windows and Mac users to manage containers.Docker's ease of use, portability, resource efficiency, scalability, and strong ecosystem has made it a popular solution for deploying and managing applications in various environments.Docker has a subscription-based sales model. Docker also collaborates with various channel partners, including technology resellers, system integrators, and value-added distributors to expand its reach.Moreover, Docker has made several strategic acquisitions to enhance its capabilities: AtomicJar (2023), Nestybox (2022), SocketPlane (2015), and Tutum (2015), among others.Key customers and partnershipsAs of December 2022, the platform was used by more than 18 million developers. As of March 2022, the company served more than 56,000 commercial customers, including Adobe, Netflix, PayPal, Verizon, and Target.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27771">March 2024</a>, Docker expanded its partnership with Red Hat to integrate Testcontainers Cloud into the Red Hat OpenShift platform. This partnership aimed to streamline the process of building cloud-native applications and facilitate real-world testing using Docker containers.Docker’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) was more than USD 50 million in 2021.

Docker

Vendors offering cloud-native infrastructure or provisioning, which is the first layer in the cloud-native landscape. It encompasses tools to create and harden the foundation of cloud-native apps.

Vendors offering execution environment (runtime) solutions. This encompasses everything a container needs to run in a cloud-native environment, including the code used to start a container.

Vendors offering solutions for application definition and development. This layer focuses on the tools that enable engineers to build cloud-native applications

Vendors offering orchestration and management solutions including tools to handle running and connecting cloud-native applications.

Vendors offering observability, including tools to understand a cloud system from its external outputs, measured by CPU time, memory, disk space, latency, errors, etc.

Vendors that bundle different tools from different layers together into a platform, solving a larger problem. These can include an orchestration tool, a container runtime, service discovery, networking, an API gateway, etc.

Provide tools to design and build applications for deployment and operation in cloud environments

Disruptors are using Generative AI for AI-based assistants and help-bots, while others provide the technology for developing and deploying Gen AI applications and models.

Lightbend

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