The CEO of GitLab looks at the public market after valuing it at 6 billion dollars

GitLab CEO Sid Sijbrandij, recently launched by a $ 6 billion employee stock sale that valued the software launch at $ 6 billion, said he was still looking to make the company public, although he was looking for many more options than were available. in the past.

Sijbrandij confirmed CNBC reports in late November on the valuation of the company in its secondary offering, which allowed employees to sell up to 20% of their capital. He provided additional details on the size of the transaction and investors, as well as increased revenue and new customers.

Cloud-based GitLab software is used by developers to share code and collaborate on projects. The company, which competes with Microsoft GitHub and Atlassian, has seen an increase in demand as more industries have come to rely on digital software and tools to conduct their operations. GitLab specializes in helping coders make product updates faster, reducing operating costs and accelerating development.

GitLab has reached recurring annual revenues of $ 150 million, Sijbrandij said, after growing 74% in the last quarter. During 2020, the company signed three major airlines and a travel management provider, even though the tourism industry was forced to make dramatic cuts due to the pandemic.

“It was the hardest hit industry last year and even they bought it again,” Sibrandij said. “It’s been a difficult year for many of our customers.”

In the “team manual” on its website, GitLab openly stated its plan to go public by November 2020. After the pandemic hit early last year, affecting the economy as a whole, the company gave up time for its debut, while indicating that an audience listing was still on the roadmap.

Sijbrandij said he did secondary to “giving our team members the opportunity to benefit from the value we have created together.” The $ 6 billion valuation has risen from a $ 2.7 billion valuation in a funding round at the end of 2019.

GitLab allowed current and former employees to sell a combined total of 4.9 million shares, bringing the total offer to $ 195 million. Investors buying shares included Alta Park, HMI Capital, OMERS Growth Equity, TCV and Verition. For the transaction, GitLab used Nasdaq Private Market, which specializes in helping private companies provide secondary liquidity.

Sijbrandij said there is no timetable for a public market debut, although people familiar with the matter told CNBC in November that it is likely to come in 2021. The company has a number of ways to consider advertising that may not be existed, or were relatively untested before last year.

One option is direct listing, the path followed by Spotify, Slack, Palantir and Asana and followed by Roblox, which allows employees to sell shares to new investors immediately. Other companies, such as Unity, Airbnb and DoorDash, have chosen a hybrid auction that allowed management to choose a price based on the auction. And there is the possibility of becoming public through a special purpose procurement company (SPAC) or through a reverse merger by a so-called entity with incomplete verification.

“There are many more options and we are looking at the market,” Sijbrandij said. SPACs present an “interesting alternative that is also on our radar,” he said.

CLOCK: There is a great demand for innovation in the market