The CEO of this $1.2 billion DevOps startup says he's providing 'pain' medicine to developers, and the customers in his care include Google, Netflix, and Facebook
JFrogJFrog CEO and co-founder Shlomi Ben Haim
- JFrog has grown to become a $1.2 billion DevOps startup that has customers like Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook.
- On Wednesday, JFrog unveiled over-the-air updates, which can provide automobiles with software updates while they're in motion and potentially prevent crashes.
- JFrog CEO and co-founder Shlomi Ben Haim says he wants the company to stay independent and believes it can power all the software updates in the world.
- Click here for more BI Prime stories.
In the first three years of the company, people would laugh at JFrog, a startup that helps developers update their software faster and more often.
At the time, JFrog CEO and co-founder Shlomi Ben Haim recalls, investors and other people were "afraid" it wouldn't scale. But now, it's a $1.2 billion startup that helped define DevOps, or a term that combines software development and operations.
JFrog already has customers like Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook, and Ben Haim believes it can become the company that powers all the software updates in the world.
"When Apple releases an iPhone, you have something to hold in your hand," Ben Haim told Business Insider. "When you do something so fundamental that powers all of [the major applications], it's very hard to explain why this company is so important. What I hope people will understand is JFrog enables everything they use...We are the guys behind the scenes."
Now, JFrog wants to provide software updates not only to web and mobile applications, but also to other connected devices, such as automobiles. On Wednesday, JFrog unveiled over-the-air updates for cars, an important innovation that the company hopes will give it an edge in an increasingly important market.
Although cars like Teslas require software updates, they can't update while the cars are being driven. Updates can also take hours, trapping people on the road. And in extreme cases, like the Boeing 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, when software doesn't update, it can be fatal. With JFrog's over-the-air updates, cars can stay in motion while the software is being updated.
"Most of the challenges is what happens when you have your MacBook, air conditioner and car supported by software," Ben Haim said. "There is a real pain of software updates to all these vendors. Everything is powered by software today. Over-the-air is a big thing for all of us."
Before software powered everything, Ben Haim says, the biggest worry for a passenger on an airplane was whether or not the pilot was adequately trained.
"Now we're sitting in the aircraft thinking, is this big monster that goes in the air, is the software updated?" Ben Haim said.
Focused on the pain
Ben Haim co-founded JFrog to address the frustration he faced as a Java developer struggling to manage software files. Other software developers felt the pain, too, and when Haim created JFrog, word spread throughout the software community.
"We were addressing the pain," Haim says, comparing the software's creation to the development of new medicine to cure a disease.
Although investors have murmured about the possibility of JFrog getting acquired, Ben Haim says he has other goals for the company: for it to stay independent and become something larger.
So instead of looking into acquisitions, he raised a series D round of funding totaling $165 million, which JFrog announced last October. In total, the company has raised $228 million. He says an IPO might happen, but it's not the goal right now.
"If there was a chance that JFrog would be acquired and we would have a nice exit," Ben Haim said. "We are after a much bigger dream. If we are going to be the one that powers all the software updates in the world, this is the biggest dream I can think of. I am very excited about the opportunity, but more excited to change the way software is being consumed today."
Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.