GitLab Inc.
Company History
GitLab History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2011 in San Francisco, California
When was GitLab founded?
GitLab was founded in 2011 in San Francisco, California by Dmitriy Zaporozhets, Valery Sizov and Sid Sijbrandij, making it 15 years old.
- Founded
- 2011
- Founding place
- San Francisco, California
- Founders
- Dmitriy Zaporozhets, Valery Sizov and Sid Sijbrandij
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California
- Milestones documented
- 11 (2011–2026)
- Current CEO
- Bill Staples
- Acquisitions
- 6
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2011 | GitLab created |
| 2012 | GitLab.com launched |
| 2015 | Y Combinator and Gitorious |
| 2017 | GitLab.com database incident |
| 2019 | Series E at $2.75 Billion Valuation |
| 2021 | Nasdaq IPO |
| 2023 | GitLab Duo launched |
| 2024 | Bill Staples becomes CEO |
| 2024 | Acquired Oxeye |
| 2026 | FY2026 revenue of $955.2 million |
| 2026 | Act 2 restructuring and GitLab Flex |
- Where was GitLab founded?
- GitLab was founded in San Francisco, California in 2011.
- Who founded GitLab?
- GitLab was founded by Dmitriy Zaporozhets, Valery Sizov and Sid Sijbrandij.
- When did GitLab start?
- GitLab was founded in 2011.
- How old is GitLab?
- GitLab is 15 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
In 2011 Dmitriy Zaporozhets, a developer in Kharkiv, Ukraine, needed a better way to collaborate on code and wrote GitLab in Ruby on Rails with Valery Sizov, releasing it as open source. In 2012 Sid Sijbrandij, a Dutch entrepreneur, saw the project on Hacker News, started GitLab.com as a hosted service, and later persuaded Zaporozhets to work on it full time. The pair built the company remotely, joined Y Combinator's Winter 2015 batch, and grew it into a public company in 2021.
Founders
Dmitriy Zaporozhets
Dmitriy Zaporozhets created GitLab in 2011 with Valery Sizov because he wanted a self-hosted, open-source tool for collaborating on Git repositories. After Sid Sijbrandij began commercializing the project in 2012, Zaporozhets joined the company full time, led engineering as CTO and later became an engineering fellow before stepping back from day-to-day work around the time of the 2021 IPO. Dmitriy Zaporozhets was born in 1987.
Valery Sizov
Valery Sizov was an early contributor to the open-source GitLab project originally created by Dmitriy Zaporozhets. He was formally recognized as a co-founder due to his massive early technical contributions to the core architecture before leaving the project. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Sid Sijbrandij
Sid Sijbrandij found GitLab on Hacker News in 2012, launched GitLab.com and built the company around an open-core model, an all-remote workforce and a public handbook. He was CEO from the company's early days through its October 2021 Nasdaq IPO, stepped down as CEO in December 2024 to focus on cancer treatment, and remains executive chair of the board. Sid Sijbrandij was born in 1979.
Key Milestones
GitLab created
Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov wrote GitLab as an open-source, self-hosted Git collaboration tool.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgGitLab.com launched
Sid Sijbrandij discovered the project and launched GitLab.com as a hosted service, beginning the commercial company.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgY Combinator and Gitorious
GitLab joined Y Combinator's Winter 2015 batch and acquired rival Git host Gitorious.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgGitLab.com database incident
An engineer accidentally deleted production data during an outage; GitLab live-streamed the recovery and published a public post-mortem.
Source: about.gitlab.comSeries E at $2.75 Billion Valuation
GitLab raised $268 million in a Series E round in September 2019 at a $2.75 billion valuation.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgNasdaq IPO
GitLab priced its IPO at $77 per share and began trading on Nasdaq under GTLB on October 14, 2021.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgGitLab Duo launched
GitLab introduced GitLab Duo, its suite of AI features for code suggestions, explanations and vulnerability remediation.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBill Staples becomes CEO
Former New Relic CEO Bill Staples succeeded Sid Sijbrandij as CEO in December 2024; Sijbrandij became executive chair.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquired Oxeye
GitLab acquired Oxeye. GitLab acquired Oxeye, an Israeli cloud-native application security startup, in March 2024 to improve its static application security testing (SAST) with reachability analysis that helps prioritize exploitable vulnerabilities.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFY2026 revenue of $955.2 million
GitLab reported FY2026 revenue of $955.2 million, up 26%, and authorized a $400 million share repurchase program.
Source: sec.govAct 2 restructuring and GitLab Flex
GitLab announced an 'Act 2' plan including a roughly 14% workforce reduction, then launched the GitLab Flex commercial model and raised FY2027 revenue guidance to $1.129-$1.133 billion.
Source: ir.gitlab.comMajor Acquisitions
Oxeye
2024GitLab acquired Oxeye, an Israeli cloud-native application security startup, in March 2024 to improve its static application security testing (SAST) with reachability analysis that helps prioritize exploitable vulnerabilities.
Opstrace
2021GitLab acquired Opstrace, an open-source observability project, in late 2021 to add monitoring and observability capabilities to its platform.
Gitorious
2015GitLab acquired rival Git hosting service Gitorious in 2015 and offered its users a migration path to GitLab.
Gemnasium
2018GitLab acquired Gemnasium in 2018 to add dependency scanning for known vulnerabilities in open-source libraries.
Peach Tech and Fuzzit
2020GitLab acquired fuzz-testing companies Peach Tech and Fuzzit in 2020 to add API and coverage-guided fuzz testing to GitLab Ultimate.
UnReview
2021GitLab acquired UnReview in 2021 to use machine learning to recommend code reviewers for merge requests.
Keep researching GitLab
GitLab Company History FAQ
What are the major historical milestones in the evolution of GitLab?
Key milestones include the open-source project's creation (2011), the launch of GitLab.com (2012), Y Combinator and the Gitorious acquisition (2015), the 2017 GitLab.com database incident, the Nasdaq IPO under GTLB (October 2021), GitLab Duo (2023), Bill Staples becoming CEO (December 2024) and FY2026 revenue of $955.2 million.
How did GitLab pioneer the concept of a single application for DevSecOps?
In 2016, GitLab made the bold strategic decision to expand beyond source code management and build a complete DevSecOps platform within a single application, integrating CI/CD, issue tracking, security scanning, and package registries into a unified codebase.
What was the significance of GitLab's October 2021 initial public offering (IPO)?
GitLab priced its IPO at $77 per share and began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on October 14, 2021, valuing the company at more than $11 billion at the offering price and showing that a fully remote company could go public at scale.
How did GitLab manage the rapid migration of developers following Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub in 2018?
After Microsoft announced it would acquire GitHub in June 2018, GitLab reported a sharp spike in repository imports as developers looked for an independent alternative, a moment the community tracked with the #MovingToGitLab hashtag.
How often does GitLab ship new releases?
GitLab has shipped a new version every month for more than a decade. Releases came on the 22nd of each month for years; in 2023 the company moved its release date to the third Thursday of each month.
What role did the transition from Ruby on Rails to Go microservices play in scaling GitLab?
As repository traffic scaled to millions of concurrent developers, GitLab rewrote performance-critical components (such as Gitaly for Git RPC operations and GitLab Workhorse for HTTP reverse proxying) in Go, dramatically improving server throughput and lowering latency.
How has GitLab contributed to modern corporate remote work standards worldwide?
GitLab published the 'Remote Playbook' and annual 'Global Remote Work Report', advising thousands of enterprises, governments, and startups on asynchronous communication, remote onboarding, and distributed management best practices.
What is GitLab's long-term product vision for the next era of enterprise software engineering?
GitLab's vision is to deliver an autonomous, AI-driven DevSecOps platform where software delivery cycles are measured in minutes rather than weeks, automated AI agents handle routine testing and security remediation, and developers focus purely on creative business logic.
How did GitLab start?
GitLab was founded in 2011 by Dmitriy Zaporozhets in Ukraine, who wanted a free, open-source alternative to GitHub for his company. Sid Sijbrandij, living in the Netherlands, saw the massive potential of the code, reached out to Dmitriy, and they officially incorporated the company, operating entirely fully remote from day one.
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