Hiro Capital Leads $4.0 Million Investment in Sidero Labs to Accelerate Development of Kubernetes Solutions

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sidero Labs, a leading software developer focused on providing innovative solutions to help lower the friction in managing Kubernetes and containerized applications, is thrilled to announce a $4.0 million investment round led by Hiro Capital with participation from Sony Innovation Fund. This funding round will help accelerate Sidero Labs' vision of bringing out-of-the-box software solutions to manage bare metal and hybrid clusters – all while enabling the highest levels of security and integrity.

Sidero Labs was born out of real-life Kubernetes experience – and problems. The founders had been running production Kubernetes clusters for large enterprise companies, and found that many of the existing Linux distros required a lot of effort and frequent patching to ensure security. 

Sidero was created to solve these operational challenges. The team's first project was Talos Linux, a radically new immutable operating system built purely for Kubernetes. Talos Linux offers key benefits such as security, stability and efficiency, and improved performance capabilities, by minimizing functional surface area.

"Sidero Labs is at the forefront of transforming how Kubernetes is used and deployed, from home-labs to enterprise data centers to edge computing" said Luke Alvarez, Managing Partner at Hiro Capital. "Their fundamental suite of tools addresses important tech industry needs. They are a brilliant, fast moving, innovative team and we are excited to support their mission."

"We are excited about the future of Kubernetes and are delighted to welcome Hiro Capital and Sony Innovation Fund as key partners," said Steve Francis, CEO of Sidero Labs. "This investment marks a pivotal moment for us, allowing us to accelerate product development and scale awareness to meet the growing demands of companies looking for intuitive and powerful tools to deploy and manage Kubernetes."

Sidero's latest product, Omni, helps teams easily setup, deploy, and manage clusters anywhere. Omni allows users to start with bare metal, virtual machines or a cloud provider, and create clusters spanning all locations, or deploy single node clusters at remotely managed edge-sites, with a few clicks. Sidero Labs is trusted by leading companies across the world in a variety of industries such as video games (Ubisoft), healthcare (Roche), and telecommunications (Nokia). 

Sidero's products are known for their ease of use, as highlighted by customers like Ubisoft: "With just three developers, we built our API on top of Omni, and had the operational cluster up and running quickly. If we had not used Omni, it would have delayed our platform by a year," Ubisoft shared.

Nokia also views Sidero Labs' Talos Linux as an important part of their cloud strategy, stating that "Talos has become a foundation and building block for us. 98% of what we do today is Kubernetes-based, and Talos is an integral part of that stack. We're building our cloud infrastructure using Talos."

"We are thrilled to support Sidero Labs on their journey to improve how Kubernetes is deployed and managed across environments," said Joseph Tou, Managing Director – U.S., Sony Ventures. "Their innovative approach to simplifying and supporting Kubernetes implementations addresses the complex challenges of modern infrastructure management. As industries like entertainment increasingly rely on cloud-based content distribution, Sidero's solutions will enhance security, efficiency, and scalability for businesses."

"The community and enterprise uptake of our declarative, API managed solutions that simplify Kubernetes has been great," said Andrew Rynhard, Founder and CTO of Sidero Labs. "This investment from Hiro Capital and Sony Innovation Fund is a recognition of our advanced technology, and will allow us to execute faster to realize the vision of simple, secure distributed computing, anywhere, that can be run by anyone."

About Sidero Labs
Founded in 2019, Sidero Labs is an innovative software development company focused on building tools and infrastructure to improve the experience for companies seeking to adopt Kubernetes and containerized applications. Sidero Labs' key products include Talos Linux (a minimal, immutable, and API-managed operating system designed specifically for running Kubernetes) and Omni (a SaaS platform for Kubernetes that simplifies deployment, management, and upgrades of Kubernetes clusters on bare metal, virtual machines, and cloud providers). Sidero's products are trusted by hundreds of companies and help manage tens of thousands of clusters across the globe.

About Hiro Capital
Hiro Capital is a London based Venture Capital firm which invests globally in Games, Digital Sports and Spatial Computing technologies. Hiro invests at Seed through Series A and B stages. We back experienced entrepreneurial teams, building innovative technologies and content with a strongly differentiated proposition and with the scaling opportunity to become very large. We are entrepreneurs who back entrepreneurs. We believe that Games, Sports and Spatial technologies will be at the heart of next generation human societies. We invest in the innovators who are building that future. https://hiro.capital/ 

About Sony Ventures Corporation
Sony Ventures Corporation manages the Sony Innovation Fund (SIF), which invests in all stages of emerging technology companies, as well as in startups solving global environmental challenges. SIF engages with pioneering startups to help fuel the development of disruptive technologies, launch new businesses, and contribute to the environment while seeking return on investment. Sony Ventures Corporation is headquartered in Japan. Learn more at www.sonyinnovationfund.com.

SOURCE Sidero Labs