Docker
Unicorn · $1BYC S10Palo Alto, US · Founded 2010 · Delaware corporation · 201 employees · 29 known investors
Docker provides containerization and application development platform tools including sandboxes, governance, and security solutions for developers.
Also known as Dotcloud
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (S10)
Docker was founded in 2010 by Solomon Hykes, Kamel Founadi, and Sebastien Pahl.
Investors · 29
Also in the syndicate · 6
Reported raises · per SEC filings
Form D private placements$294.7M disclosed across 4 of 10 rounds · 2011–2022
▶$74.7MraisedApr 2022 · 18 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Peter BeardonDirector
- Peter HoringDirector
- Arjun SethiDirector
- Scott BaumgartnerExecutive Officer
- Enrique SalemDirector
- Peter FentonDirector
- Scott JohnstonExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $105M
- Amount sold
- $74.7M
- First sale
- Mar 2022
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$91.9MraisedOct 2018 · 31 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- ROBERT ENSLINDirector
- JEFF CLARKEDirector
- PETER FENTONDirector
- SOLOMON HYKESExecutive Officer, Director
- DANIEL SCHOLNICKDirector
- JERRY CHENDirector
- BETSY ATKINSDirector
- MIKE GUPTAExecutive Officer
- JERRY YANGDirector
- STEVEN S. SINGHExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $191.8M
- Amount sold
- $91.9M
- First sale
- Sep 2017
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$113MraisedNov 2015 · 32 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Solomon HykesExecutive Officer, Director
- Jerry YangDirector
- Marc VerstaenDirector
- Mike GuptaExecutive Officer
- Daniel ScholnickDirector
- Peter FentonDirector
- Jerry ChenDirector
- Benjamin GolubExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $113M
- Amount sold
- $113M
- First sale
- Apr 2015
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2010
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$15MraisedJan 2014 · 14 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Jerry ChenDirector
- Daniel ScholnickDirector
- Marc VerstaenDirector
- Jerry YangDirector
- Peter FentonDirector
- Solomon HykesExecutive Officer, Director
- Benjamin GolubExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $15M
- Amount sold
- $15M
- First sale
- Jan 2014
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2010
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Valuation · disclosed
Disclosed eventsSource: SEC prospectus filings, and round valuations the company or its investors disclosed — follow each entry's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Docker's story begins not with containers but with dotCloud, a Paris-founded, Y Combinator-backed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) startup started in 2008 by Kamel Founadi, Solomon Hykes, and Sebastien Pahl, and incorporated in the United States in 2010. dotCloud raised a small seed round ($800K in February 2011 from angels including Chris Sacca, Jerry Yang, and Ron Conway) and a $10 million Series A in March 2011 led by Benchmark Capital and Trinity Ventures. Internally, dotCloud's engineers -- led by CTO Solomon Hykes -- had built a lightweight internal tool for packaging and running applications in Linux containers, which they open-sourced in March 2013 under the name Docker.
The open-source Docker Engine caught fire with developers almost immediately, far outpacing interest in dotCloud's core PaaS product. In July 2013 the company brought in Ben Golub (previously CEO of Gluster, sold to Red Hat) as CEO to help navigate this shift, and on October 29, 2013, dotCloud, Inc. formally renamed itself Docker, Inc., selling off the original dotCloud PaaS brand and technology to Berlin-based cloudControl in August 2014 to focus entirely on the container platform. This is the company's first and most consequential pivot: from a niche PaaS vendor to the steward of what became the standard unit of software packaging across the industry.
What followed was a period of explosive growth and heavy venture investment as Docker became one of the fastest-growing developer infrastructure companies of the decade. Greylock Partners led a $15 million Series B in January 2014; Sequoia Capital led a $40 million Series C in September 2014; and Insight Venture Partners led a $95 million Series D in April 2015 (topped up with an additional $18 million in November 2015, bringing that round to $113 million total) that valued Docker at over $1 billion, making it one of the era's marquee "unicorns." Docker made a string of acquisitions (Orchard, SocketPlane, Unikernel Systems, Koality) and forged major partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, and Red Hat/OpenShift. It later emerged that In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture arm, had also been a Docker investor. Solomon Hykes stepped back from Docker's board in March 2018 ("Au Revoir"), and CEO transitions followed -- Ben Golub was succeeded as CEO in 2017, and Rob Bearden briefly took over as CEO in May 2019.
Business model
Freemium / tiered SaaS subscriptions (Docker Personal free; Docker Pro, Team, and Business paid per-seat tiers) plus enterprise sales of security/compliance add-ons (Docker Hardened Images, Docker Scout, Docker Build Cloud, AI governance tooling) and platform/API usage-based products.
Per-seat monthly/annual subscriptions (Pro ~$9-11, Team ~$15-16, Business ~$24 per user/month as of 2026), enterprise contracts, and usage-based cloud compute products (e.g., Docker Build Cloud, Docker Offload); historically also open-source-led adoption funneling into paid upgrades.
▸Full profile — profile (continued), go-to-market, ownership
Profile (continued)
By 2019, however, Docker's dual-product strategy -- a free/open developer tool alongside a costly-to-sell Docker Enterprise (container orchestration/PaaS) business aimed at large enterprises -- had become commercially strained, and the company had not converted its massive developer mindshare into proportionate enterprise revenue amid intensifying competition from Kubernetes and cloud-native ecosystem players. In November 2019, Docker sold its Docker Enterprise Technology Platform (Docker Enterprise Engine, Docker Trusted Registry, Docker Unified Control Plane, and the enterprise CLI, along with associated staff) to Mirantis. Simultaneously, Docker, Inc. underwent a recapitalization of its equity, raising $35 million in new financing from existing investors Benchmark Capital and Insight Partners, and installed Scott Johnston (previously Docker's Chief Product Officer) as CEO. This is Docker's second defining pivot: shedding the enterprise/orchestration business to refocus purely on developer tools -- Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and the core container toolchain.
Under Scott Johnston, the "new" Docker rebuilt its business around freemium/subscription monetization of its enormous developer user base (Docker changed Docker Desktop licensing terms in 2021 to require paid subscriptions for larger companies) and layered on new products: Docker Build Cloud, Docker Scout (supply-chain security), and a wave of tuck-in acquisitions (InfoSiftr, Nestybox, Tilt, Atomist in 2022; Mutagen in 2023; AtomicJar/Testcontainers in December 2023; MCP Defender in September 2025). The company raised a $23 million Series B in March 2021 led by Tribe Capital (with Benchmark and Insight participating) and a $105 million Series C in March 2022 led by new investor Bain Capital Ventures, joined by new investors Atlassian Ventures, Citi Ventures, Vertex Ventures, and Four Rivers -- funding that Docker said would accelerate investment in developer productivity, trusted content, and ecosystem partnerships.
In February 2025, Don Johnson -- founder of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and an early AWS technical leader -- succeeded Scott Johnston as CEO, positioning Docker for what the company frames as a third act: securing and governing the rise of AI coding agents. Through 2025 and into 2026, Docker has rapidly rolled out AI/agentic-era products -- Docker MCP Catalog and Toolkit (Model Context Protocol tooling), Docker Hardened Images (which it made free and open in December 2025), Docker Sandboxes and AI Governance for constraining what coding agents can access, Docker Model Runner for local LLM inference, and the Gordon AI agent -- while continuing to describe itself as trusted by tens of millions of developers and tens of thousands of companies worldwide.
Go-to-market
Individual software developers, development teams, and enterprises building, shipping, and securing containerized and (increasingly) AI-agentic applications; large enterprise IT/security organizations for supply-chain security and governance products.
Ownership
private
Compiled by commissioned research from 10 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Founder mafia
The Docker mafia →10 people who came through Docker went on to found or lead other companies.
Competitors · 2
by search overlap
Companies competing with Docker for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Customers & partners
Named customers · 6
Relationships the company or its partners disclosed publicly — case studies, joint announcements, press.
Timeline · 28
launches, deals, and filingsDocker appoints Vinh Le as CFO and Mat Velloso as Chief Product Officer, strengthening leadership as the company expands into securing and governing agentic workflows.
Docker announces it is making its catalog of 1,000+ Docker Hardened Images (DHI) free, open, and transparent, resetting the container security market.
Docker acquires MCP Defender for agentic AI security, per Wikipedia's acquisitions list.
Docker expands its AI initiative with tools built around the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Don Johnson, founder of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and an early AWS technical leader, is named Docker CEO, succeeding Scott Johnston.
Docker acquires New York-based AtomicJar, maker of the popular open-source Testcontainers project, its seventh acquisition since 2019.
Docker raises $105 million in Series C financing led by new investor Bain Capital Ventures, joined by new investors Atlassian Ventures, Citi Ventures, Vertex Ventures, and Four Rivers, to accelerate investment in developer productivity, trusted content, and ecosystem partnerships.
Docker launches the Docker Business subscription tier for large companies and updates Docker Desktop licensing terms.
Docker raises $23 million in Series B funding led by Tribe Capital, with participation from Benchmark and Insight Partners, bringing post-recap total funding to $58 million at that time.
Docker sells its Docker Enterprise Technology Platform (Docker Enterprise Engine, Docker Trusted Registry, Docker Unified Control Plane, enterprise CLI) to Mirantis. Docker simultaneously completes an equity recapitalization, raises $35 million from existing investors Benchmark Capital and Insight Partners, and installs Scott Johnston as CEO to refocus purely on developer tools.
Rob Bearden is named Docker CEO shortly before the Mirantis divestiture later that year.
Docker raises $95 million in a Series D round led by Insight Venture Partners, valuing the company at over $1 billion.
Docker raises $40 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital.
Docker divests the legacy dotCloud brand and PaaS technology to cloudControl, completing its focus on the core container business.
Docker closes a $15 million Series B round led by Greylock Partners/Ventures to accelerate growth.
The company pivots away from its original PaaS business to focus on the Docker container engine and formally renames itself Docker, Inc.
Ben Golub, formerly of Gluster (sold to Red Hat), becomes CEO of dotCloud.
The Docker container engine, built internally at dotCloud, is publicly released as open source.
dotCloud raises a $10 million Series A led by Benchmark Capital and Trinity Ventures.
dotCloud raises seed capital from angel investors including Chris Sacca, Jerry Yang, and Ron Conway.
dotCloud, Inc. is incorporated in the U.S. (going through Y Combinator).
Kamel Founadi, Solomon Hykes, and Sebastien Pahl found dotCloud, a Platform-as-a-Service startup, in Paris, France.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structureIn the news
Docker Strengthens Leadership Team With Appointments of Mat Velloso as Chief Product Officer and Vinh Le as Chief Financial OfficerDocker (press release) · Aug 2026▸Research sources · 10
primary sources listed
- About Docker / Our CompanyDocker, Inc. · company site
- Docker Press Release ArchiveDocker, Inc. · company site
- Customer SuccessDocker, Inc. · company site
- Docker, Inc | LinkedInLinkedIn · social/company profile
10 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Docker do?
- The trusted platform for building software in the agentic era
- Who founded Docker?
- Docker was founded by Solomon Hykes, Kamel Founadi, Sebastien Pahl in 2010.
- Who are Docker's investors?
- Docker's investors include Aglae Ventures, Atlassian Ventures, Citi Ventures, Coatue Management, Cross Creek Advisors, Greylock Partners, In-Q-Tel, Insight Partners and 15 more.
- How much funding has Docker raised?
- Docker has disclosed $294.7M raised across 4 of its 10 known rounds.
- Where is Docker headquartered?
- Docker is headquartered in Palo Alto, US.