CIQ Valuation, Funding & Investors

CIQ is valued at $2B as of July 2025.

See full CIQ profile

Last CIQ valuation

$2B

Seed · Jul 2025

Last CIQ funding round

$2M

Seed · Jul 2025

Cumulative funding CIQ raised

$28M

across 2 funding rounds

Key investors in CIQ

  • Battle Born Venture
  • Two Bear Capital

CIQ Overview

About CIQ

CIQ is an Austin-based provider of enterprise support for open-source infrastructure software including Rocky Linux, Kata Containers, and OpenShift. Founded by former CentOS leaders in 2021, it delivers 24/7 SLAs to Fortune 500 clients like financial institutions and cloud providers worldwide.


Founded

2020

HQ

United StatesReno, NV

Website

ciq.com

Status

Privately held

Customer focus

B2B

Revenue model

Services, Subscription

Valuation

$2B (Jul 2025)

CIQ Valuation

CIQ is currently valued at $2B, based on its seed round in July 2025.

The $2M round included Battle Born Venture.

CIQ's valuation has grown 13x from $150M at its Series A in May 2022 to $2B in July 2025, across 2 priced rounds.

CIQ valuation by funding round

CIQ valuation by funding round
DateStageValuation
Jul 2025Seed$2B
May 2022Series A$150M

CIQ Funding History

CIQ has raised a total of $28M across 2 funding rounds.

CIQ's first fundraising round was a $26M Series A in May 2022. The most recent completed round was a $2M seed round in July 2025.

CIQ funding rounds

CIQ funding rounds
DateStageInvestorsRaisedValuationDeal Summary
Jul 2025SeedBattle Born Venture$2M$2BCIQ is a software infrastructure company founded in 2020 and headquartered in Reno, Nevada. The company leads the development and commercial support of Rocky Linux, an open-source operating system, and builds a comprehensive product suite tailored for enterprises running high-performance, cloud, hybrid, and AI workloads. Its offerings include Enterprise Linux distributions, automation tools such as Ascender, and orchestration and cluster management platforms including Fuzzball and Warewulf. Battle Born Venture, Nevada's state venture capital program, invested in CIQ in September 2025, valuing the company at $2,000,000. The investment was made through Battle Born Venture, which is funded through the State Small Business Credit Initiative and focuses on supporting Nevada-based startups with strong growth potential.
May 2022Series ATwo Bear Capital (lead)$26M$150MCIQ, operating as Ctrl IQ Inc., is a software infrastructure startup that develops stable, scalable, and secure solutions across the technology stack, including bare metal provisioning with Warewulf, container solutions with Singularity/Apptainer, operating systems like Rocky Linux, orchestration, and federated computing. As the founding sponsor and services partner of Rocky Linux, the fastest-growing enterprise Linux distribution and a free alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CIQ aims to empower users by enhancing the software infrastructure stack for enterprise, cloud, hyperscale, and high-performance computing environments. The company positions itself as a customer-centric provider disrupting traditional support and services with a complete stack from imaging to global hybrid computing platforms. On May 11-12, 2022, CIQ closed a $26 million Series A funding round led by Two Bear Capital, bringing total financing to $33 million and post-money valuation to $150 million. Previous investors included OpenDrives and IAG Capital Partners, which led a 2021 bridge round. The funding will expand development teams, customer success, scale operations to meet demand, innovate products, and transition CIQ from an early-stage startup to a more mature company serving datacenters, clouds, and computing resources. Two Bear Capital, founded by Michael Goguen, focuses on early-stage firms in software infrastructure, AI, cybersecurity, and related fields. CIQ has gained support from Google, which in April 2022 designated Rocky Linux as a tier-1, optimized, and supported OS. The 30-person team at the time emphasized solving infrastructure problems at scale, with proceeds directed toward product development and customer growth.

Who has invested in CIQ?

2 investors have backed CIQ across its funding rounds, including Battle Born Venture and Two Bear Capital.

Lead investors include Two Bear Capital.


CIQ Investors

Investors in CIQ by funding rounds participated
InvestorHQRoundsRoleFirst check

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CIQ Competitors

CIQ competitors include listed companies like Beijing Ultrapower, Freshworks and PagerDuty, and private ones like Kaseya, JumpCloud and BigPanda.

Public and private companies comparable to CIQ
CompanyHQStatusRevenueEBITDAValuationRevenue Multiple
KaseyaUnited StatesMiami, FLPrivate--$1.8B-
Beijing UltrapowerChinaChinaPublicly listed$868M$165M$2.4B2.1x
JumpCloudUnited StatesLouisville, KYPrivate$56M-$2.6B46.9x
FreshworksUnited StatesUnited StatesPublicly listed$839M$41M$3.3B2.9x
BigPandaUnited StatesSan Francisco, CAPrivate--$1.2B-
PagerDutyUnited StatesUnited StatesPublicly listed$493M$17M$1.1B2.2x

CIQ Public Comps

CIQ is still privately-owned, but its public comps include ESDS Software, Beijing Ultrapower, PagerDuty, Datagroup, Freshworks, Wiscom System, Bonree Data Technology, Beijing Baolande Software, ActiveOps and Suresofttech.

Last FYEV/RevenueEV/EBITDA
RevenueEBITDALast FYLTM2027ELast FYLTM2027E
ESDS Software$49M$25M38.3x13.8x76.7x56.6x
Beijing Ultrapower$868M$165M2.3x2.1x11.9x10.6x
PagerDuty$493M$17M2.2x2.2x64.6x7.7x
Datagroup$652M$96M1.4x1.4x9.6x9.4x
Freshworks$839M$41M3.2x2.9x65.7x11.3x
Wiscom System$233M$13M1.8x-32.1x-
Bonree Data Technology$19M($13M)19.0x16.4x(28.1x)(45.3x)
Beijing Baolande Software$34M($9M)6.8x-(25.4x)-

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Common questions about CIQ

When was CIQ founded?CIQ was founded in 2020.
Where is CIQ headquartered?CIQ is headquartered in Reno, NV, United States.
Is CIQ publicly listed?No, CIQ is a private, VC-backed company.
What is CIQ's valuation?CIQ was last valued at $2B in its seed round in July 2025.
How much funding has CIQ raised?CIQ has raised $28M across 2 funding rounds.
What was CIQ's last funding round?CIQ's last funding round was a $2M seed round in July 2025.
Who are CIQ's investors?CIQ's investors include Two Bear Capital and Battle Born Venture.
Which companies are comparable to CIQ?Companies comparable to CIQ include Kaseya, Beijing Ultrapower, JumpCloud, Freshworks, BigPanda and PagerDuty.

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