Enterprise software scaleup Octopus Deploy, which bootstrapped for 11 years, before a $220 million raise in 2021 took on $US30 million (A$45m) in fresh capital from its existing and only investor, New York VC Insight Partners, ahead of a major acquisition.
The new funding was secured in 2024 before the Brisbane business spent $43 million to acquire US rival Codefresh.
The cash injection from Insight saw the company’s valuation increase US$80 million to A$883 million. It’s one of the largest privately-held companies in the DevOps ecosystem.
Platform engineering teams use Octopus Deploy for continuous integration/delivery (CI/CD) and this month the business also launched the Octopus MCP Server, which can work alongside source control, CI, and cloud MCP (Model Context Protocol) tooling, enabling agentic workflows across DevOps ecosystems
After being profitable for for a decade and bootstrapping since being founded in 2012 by husband and wife team Sonia and Paul Stovell, the business has focused on growth rapid growth since raising US$172.5 million (A$222m) four years ago.
The Stovells own just under half the business while Insight’s holding is a little over a third.
Revenue has trebled since FY2021, but the business has finished in the red annually since FY22 as spending on sales and marketing and headcount more than doubled.
The software platform’s latest quarterly results for Q2 2024 put annual recurring revenue (ARR) at $79.8 million, an increase of 17% year-over-year. Quarterly free cash flow was $0.2 million (1%) compared to $0.6 million (4%) for Q2 2024..
The software firm has more than 4000 customers include 137 delivering ARR in excess of $100,000, up 10% on 12 months ago. North American enterprise customers delivered $25m in ARR and grew by 20%.
The company predicted ARR of between $81.m and $83.4m by the end of Q3 with a loss of between $(3.5)m and $(4.5)m due to seasonal fluctuations.
In a moment of serendipity, news of the Queensland-based global tech platform’s latest funding round emerged on World Octopus Day.
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