Shippable Raises $8M Series A For Its Docker-Based Continuous Integration Platform

If you have a startup that touches Docker, chances are somebody out there wants to fund you. There is no other buzzword right now that seems to open up a VCs pockets so quickly. Shippable, which offers a containerized continuous integration and delivery platform based on Docker containers, today announced that it has raised an $8 million Series A round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from existing investors including Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, Divergent Ventures and Founders Co-Op.

The company plans to use the additional funding, which comes after the company raised $2 million a year ago, to continue its push into the enterprise, which in many ways is only now starting to adopt continuous integration. The company says it has added over 20,000 users and 2,500 organizations since early September, when it launched version 2.0 of the service.

What makes Shippable’s solution stand out is that it leverages containers to create a faster, easier-to-use and — maybe even more importantly — cheaper solution for its customers who can host its service both in their own data centers or on a public cloud. Continuous integration includes running unit tests on all of the code, and Shippable uses containers to allow it to quickly grow or shrink these virtual test labs depending on workloads. Because these containers are essentially replicas of the ones that are used in production, it’s easy to ensure that the development and test environments match the production setup. Overall, this approach could cut a company’s test lab footprint by up to 70 percent, the company claims.

“Open source continues to have a huge impact on the technology industry, and companies like Shippable are leveraging those technologies to help customers innovate faster at a lower total cost,” Tim Porter, the managing director of lead investor Madrona Venture Group, told me earlier this week. “Containers bring increased flexibility, agility and speed and Shippable is making it possible for enterprises to get these benefits for streamlining their continuous test and deployment of applications without the headache of implementing an entirely new infrastructure.”

The company also argues that its systems allow for a far more automated approach. “The phrase ‘continuous integration’ is a misnomer. Traditional CI tools like Jenkins only help automate unit tests, and functional testing on staging environments is still predominantly manual and not really ‘continuous,'” says Avi Cavale, the founder and CEO of Shippable.