Highlights:

  • Chainguard’s flagship product, Chainguard Containers, offers a catalog of over 1,200 hardened open-source components packaged into containers—an increase from around 700 components at the time of its previous funding round last year.
  • Chainguard VMs is a suite of hardened virtual machines specifically optimized for running containerized applications.

Chainguard Inc. raised USD 356 million in the latest funding. The startup helps developers ensure the security of open-source code they use.

This Series D funding round comes less than a year after the company’s previous nine-figure investment. In the announcement shared recently, Chainguard stated that the round was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and IVP. They were joined by Salesforce Ventures, Datadog Ventures, as well as all of the company’s existing investors.

Open-source components are frequently integrated into enterprise applications. However, if one of these components contains a vulnerability, it can render the entire application vulnerable to cyberattacks. Chainguard aims to mitigate this risk by offering hardened, more secure versions of widely used open-source technologies.

To enhance the security of an open-source tool, Chainguard develops a “software bill of materials,” which outlines all the components included in the tool. This documentation makes it easier to pinpoint elements that may introduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Additionally, Chainguard’s engineers proactively remove any superfluous code that could potentially be exploited in cyberattacks.

Once a customized version of an open-source tool is released, the company ensures it is updated daily with improvements and security patches from the upstream project. This approach allows users to receive timely fixes for newly uncovered vulnerabilities.

Chainguard’s flagship product, Chainguard Containers, offers a catalog of over 1,200 hardened open-source components packaged into containers—an increase from around 700 components at the time of its previous funding round last year. In March, the company expanded its portfolio with the launch of two new products: Chainguard VMs and an additional version of Chainguard Containers.

Companies frequently deploy containers within virtual machines, which are equipped with both an operating system and a runtime environment that facilitates interactions between workloads and the OS. Chainguard VMs is a suite of hardened virtual machines specifically optimized for running containerized applications.

Traditional operating systems include numerous components that are unnecessary for container workloads. Chainguard VMs eliminate these extraneous elements, simplifying the system and making tasks like applying cybersecurity patches more straightforward.

The company’s other recent product, Chainguard Libraries, offers hardened versions of widely used Java libraries. These libraries are prewritten code modules that developers can integrate into their applications, helping them avoid the need to build every feature from the ground up.

In light of this funding milestone, Chainguard revealed that its flagship product, Chainguard Containers, now serves over 150 customers. The company’s annualized recurring revenue from these customers surpassed USD 40 million during its 2025 fiscal year, and Chainguard anticipates this figure will grow to USD 100 million by the end of fiscal 2026.

The newly secured funding will be directed toward accelerating the company’s go-to-market initiatives and developing new product features.