Rancher Labs Acquisition, Valuation, Funding & Investors
Rancher Labs was acquired by SUSE for $600M in July 2020.
Cumulative funding Rancher Labs raised
$95M
across 4 funding rounds
Key investors in Rancher Labs
Nexus Venture Partners
Mayfield Fund
GRC SinoGreen Fund
F&G Venture
Titanium Ventures
About Rancher Labs
Rancher Labs is a container orchestration platform built on Kubernetes for enterprise IT operations. The software manages clusters across clouds like AWS, Azure, and on-premises environments, supporting deployment, scaling, and monitoring. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Cupertino, California, Rancher was acquired by SUSE in 2020 and powers millions of container instances globally.
Founded
2014
HQ
San Jose, CAWebsite
Status
Acquired
Customer focus
B2B
Revenue model
Subscription
Valuation
$320M (Mar 2020)
Rancher Labs Acquisition
Rancher Labs was acquired by SUSE for $600M on 8 July 2020.
Before the acquisition Rancher Labs had raised $95M across 4 funding rounds.
Rancher Labs was a leader in Kubernetes container management, providing enterprise-focused tools including Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE), K3s, Longhorn storage, and RancherOS. The company had demonstrated strong growth, with doubled customer count and 169% sales increase in 2019. SUSE, a Germany-based open-source software company owned by private equity firm EQT, acquired Rancher Labs for $600 million to accelerate its inorganic growth strategy and strengthen its cloud-native capabilities. The acquisition was announced on July 8, 2020, and closed on December 1, 2020. Rancher CEO Sheng Liang became SUSE's President of Engineering and Innovation upon deal completion. The strategic rationale centered on combining SUSE's enterprise Linux, edge computing, and AI leadership with Rancher's market-leading Kubernetes management platform to create a comprehensive open-source portfolio spanning edge, data center, and cloud environments. The deal was SUSE's first major acquisition since becoming a fully independent company in March 2019 and positioned the combined entity to compete directly with IBM Red Hat in the Kubernetes and cloud-native markets.
| Acquirer | Date | Type | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Jul 2020 | Strategic M&A | $600M |
Rancher Labs Valuation
Rancher Labs is currently valued at $320M, based on its Series D in March 2020.
The $40M round was led by Titanium Ventures, with participation from F&G Venture, GRC SinoGreen Fund, Nexus Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund.
Rancher Labs' valuation has grown 4.1x from $79M at its Series B in May 2016 to $320M in March 2020, across 2 priced rounds.
Rancher Labs valuation by funding round
| Date | Stage | Valuation |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2020 | Series D | $320M |
| May 2016 | Series B | $79M |
Rancher Labs Funding History
Rancher Labs has raised a total of $95M across 4 funding rounds.
Rancher Labs' first fundraising round was a $10M Series A in June 2015. The most recent completed round was a $40M Series D in March 2020.
Rancher Labs funding rounds
| Date | Stage | Investors | Raised | Valuation | Deal Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2020 | Series D | Titanium Ventures (lead); F&G Venture; GRC SinoGreen Fund; Nexus Venture Partners; Mayfield Fund | $40M | $320M | Rancher Labs develops open-source software for deploying and managing Kubernetes at scale across data centers, cloud, branch offices, and edge infrastructure. The company provides a container management platform supporting Docker Swarm and Kubernetes on various cloud environments and bare-metal setups, used by DevOps teams to automate container lifecycles. Prior to general availability in 2016, over 2,500 companies joined its beta program. On March 16, 2020, Rancher Labs raised funding in a Series D round led by Titanium Ventures (previously Telstra Ventures), with participation from investors including Mayfield Fund, Nexus Venture Partners, GRC SinoGreen Fund, and others. The round valued the company at approximately $320 million post-money, contributing to its total funding of $95 million across multiple rounds. Earlier rounds included a Series B in May 2016 at $79.27 million valuation and a Series C in July 2019. The funding supported sales, marketing, and scaling efforts amid growing demand for container management tools. Rancher Labs was acquired on July 8, 2020, for over $600 million, marking a successful exit shortly after the Series D. Investors like Titanium Ventures focused on tech growth, with Rancher listed among their lead investments alongside Cumulus Networks. |
| Jul 2019 | Series C | F&G Venture; GRC SinoGreen Fund; Nexus Venture Partners | $25M | - | Rancher Labs, a provider of container management software focused on Kubernetes, announced 161% year-on-year revenue growth and 52% growth in new customers around July 23, 2019, coinciding with a $25M funding round led by investors including F&G Venture, GRC SinoGreen Fund, and Nexus Venture Partners. The round aimed to accelerate momentum in open source Kubernetes management platforms deployable across data centers, clouds, and edges. The company had over 37,000 active users and more than 100 million downloads of its flagship Rancher product by mid-2020. This positioned Rancher as a leader in Kubernetes management, often deployed in community models before commercialization efforts. Subsequently, SUSE agreed to acquire Rancher Labs in July 2020 for an estimated $600 million, integrating it into its portfolio to enhance enterprise Kubernetes offerings. Post-acquisition, Rancher ARR reached $50.7 million, up 91% year-over-year, within SUSE's total ARR of $519.3 million, highlighting strong growth in cloud-native technologies amid booming Kubernetes adoption. |
| May 2016 | Series B | GRC SinoGreen Fund (lead); Nexus Venture Partners; Mayfield Fund | $20M | $79M | Rancher Labs, founded in 2014 and based in California, developed an open-source container management platform supporting Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, enabling enterprises to deploy and manage containerized applications across cloud, data centers, and bare-metal infrastructure. The platform facilitated software-defined networking, persistent storage for stateful workloads, auditing, and integration with third-party automation tools, addressing key needs in DevOps and IT operations amid rapid container adoption. On May 9-10, 2016, Rancher Labs raised a $20 million Series B funding round led by GRC SinoGreen Fund, with participation from existing investors Mayfield Fund and Nexus Venture Partners. This brought the company's total funding to $30 million, following a prior $10 million Series A from Mayfield and Nexus. The funds were allocated to expand sales and marketing to meet growing product demand, as the platform had already attracted over 2,500 beta users before general availability in March 2016. Rancher continued raising capital, securing a $25 million Series C in July 2019 from F&G Ventures, GRC SinoGreen, and Nexus, and a $40 million Series D in 2020 led by Telstra Ventures, reaching $95 million total before its acquisition by SUSE in July 2020. |
| Jun 2015 | Series A | Mayfield Fund (lead); Nexus Venture Partners (lead) | $10M | - | Rancher Labs, a US-based startup founded in September 2014, develops open source container infrastructure software including Rancher for orchestrating Docker on any infrastructure and RancherOS, a minimalist OS designed to run Docker exclusively. The company focuses on solutions for container networking, load balancing, monitoring, and storage to enable production deployments. In June 2015, Rancher Labs raised $10 million in Series A funding from Mayfield Fund and Nexus Venture Partners to bolster product development and expand engineering and development teams. The founding team includes CEO Sheng Liang, previously behind Cloud.com acquired by Citrix in 2011. |
Who has invested in Rancher Labs?
5 investors have backed Rancher Labs across its funding rounds, including Nexus Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, GRC SinoGreen Fund, F&G Venture and Titanium Ventures.
Lead investors include Titanium Ventures, GRC SinoGreen Fund, Mayfield Fund and Nexus Venture Partners.
Rancher Labs Investors
| Investor | HQ | Rounds | Role | First check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 4 | Lead | Jun 2015 | |
 Shenzhen | 3 | Lead | May 2016 | |
| United States | 3 | Lead | Jun 2015 | |
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Benchmark 350K+ Funding Rounds and Disclosed VC Valuation Multiples
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Start Free TrialRancher Labs Competitors
Rancher Labs competitors include listed companies like Chrysos Corp. and ZUKEN, and private ones like proteanTecs, Innovapptive, Apprentice.io and Autosys Industrial Solutions Private Limited.
| Company | HQ | Status | Revenue | EBITDA | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Haifa | Private | $60M | - | $600M | 10.0x | |
| Houston, TX | Private | - | - | $580M | - | |
| Jersey City, NJ | Private | - | - | $622M | - | |
 Mumbai | Private | - | - | $651M | - | |
 Australia | Publicly listed | $63M | $19M | $531M | 8.5x | |
 Japan | Publicly listed | $277M | $51M | $679M | 1.7x |
Rancher Labs Public Comps
Rancher Labs is no longer listed, but its public comps include Jiangxi Tianli Technology, Chrysos Corp., ZUKEN, Shenzhen Sunwin, Hansen Technologies, AsiaInfo, Hebei Gongda Keya Technology Group, Breton Technology, Zhengzhou Jiean Hi-tech and Rand Worldwide.
| Last FY | EV/Revenue | EV/EBITDA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | EBITDA | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | |
| $73M | $69K | 7.2x | - | 7603.1x | - | |||
| $63M | $19M | 8.9x | 8.5x | 29.1x | 26.6x | |||
| $277M | $51M | 1.6x | 1.7x | 8.9x | - | |||
| $20M | ($147M) | 37.7x | - | (5.0x) | - | |||
| $275M | $52M | 1.9x | 1.9x | 9.8x | 6.3x | |||
| $940M | $39M | 0.3x | 0.3x | 8.1x | 7.9x | |||
| $69M | $9M | 5.7x | - | 45.7x | - | |||
| $116M | ($37M) | 7.1x | 4.7x | (22.1x) | (68.3x) | |||
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Common questions about Rancher Labs
| When was Rancher Labs founded? | Rancher Labs was founded in 2014. |
| Where is Rancher Labs headquartered? | Rancher Labs is headquartered in San Jose, CA, United States. |
| Is Rancher Labs publicly listed? | No, Rancher Labs was acquired by SUSE in July 2020. |
| Who acquired Rancher Labs? | Rancher Labs was acquired by SUSE in July 2020. |
| How much was Rancher Labs acquired for? | Rancher Labs was acquired for $600M in July 2020. |
| What is Rancher Labs' valuation? | Rancher Labs was last valued at $320M in its Series D in March 2020. |
| How much funding has Rancher Labs raised? | Rancher Labs has raised $95M across 4 funding rounds. |
| What was Rancher Labs' last funding round? | Rancher Labs' last funding round was a $40M Series D in March 2020, led by Titanium Ventures. |
| Who are Rancher Labs' investors? | Rancher Labs' investors include Nexus Venture Partners, GRC SinoGreen Fund, Mayfield Fund, F&G Venture and Titanium Ventures. |
| Which companies are comparable to Rancher Labs? | Companies comparable to Rancher Labs include proteanTecs, Innovapptive, Apprentice.io, Autosys Industrial Solutions Private Limited, Chrysos Corp. and ZUKEN. |
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