Belfast-based Cloudsmith raises $15 million in Tiger Global led round

It’s not every day that you hear of a raise this sized coming out of Northern Ireland, especially a Series A round that’s led by traditionally later stage investment powerhouse Tiger Global; Belfast-based Cloudsmith has brought home $15 million. The startup gives enterprise-grade customers the ability to manage software via the cloud, thus significantly reducing the need to hire dedicated support staff. To date, the firm has raised approximately $18 million.

This funding is not only a win for Cloudsmith, who intends to hire up to 60 new staff members, but also for Belfast as a whole, as it continues its drive to become one of the UK’s dominant tech clusters.

Founded in 2016 by former NYSE developers Alan Carson and Lee Skillen, the duo took a look at the status quo. And decided to do something about it. At present, on-site software solutions more often than not require some serious humanpower to operate. There’s the need for dedicated staffing, VPNs, licenses, etc., etc., etc. By flipping the playbook on its collective head, and stuffing everything into the cloud, Cloudsmith is effectively wiping these costs from the company ledger.

And while this should hardly come as an afterthought, but … Cloudsmith’s offering also includes the ability to automatically detect vulnerabilities, assisting businesses in preventing the introduction of security holes in their software supply chains. With the global pandemic seeing a massive spike in malicious hacker behaviour, this type of security has become no longer a nice-to-have, but a mission-critical option.

“Cloudsmith was built to tackle the complexity of managing software assets, which is a key challenge for any company to secure their software supply chains. Our service allows our customers to track and control the distribution of any software asset and provides tooling to minimize the risks of utilizing open-source software,” comments Carson.

In addition to Tiger Global’s lead, Cloudsmith’s Series A round, the largest on the books for Northern Ireland, saw participation from Shasta (ventures, not the softdrink), Amaranthine (venture capital, not the singer), Sorenson (capital, not the communication platform) and Leadout Capital (the, umm, investment firm). Existing investors Frontline (ventures, not the flea and tick collar makers), MMC, and Techstart all followed on. Likewise, the round included the support of angel investors Docker CEO Scott Johnston, Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar, and Puppet CEO Yvonne Wassenaar.