ActiveState Raises Strategic Investment to Accelerate Its Vision for Modern Security-First Software Development

  • ActiveState is a leading provider of open source language distributions for enterprises
  • Turn/River Capital to provide a strategic investment as well as SaaS go-to-market expertise
  • The investment will accelerate development and marketing of the ActiveState Platform

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--()--ActiveState Software Inc. (“ActiveState”) announced today that it has secured a strategic investment from Turn/River Capital, a leading technology-focused growth equity firm. The investment will accelerate product development and market expansion for ActiveState’s unique software dependency, build, and risk management platform.

Enterprise use of open source is pervasivei, strategicii, and growing rapidlyiii. While open source is a boon for enterprises, its decentralized nature places a heavy burden on development, security, and compliance teams. In a recent audit of over 1200 commercial codebases, 75% had security vulnerabilities and 67% had licensing conflictsiv.

The ActiveState Platform helps enterprises reduce risk, improve security, and manage compliance by identifying vulnerabilities and other issues in third-party code both before and after the code is adopted. Unlike other solutions that deal with these issues after-the-fact, ActiveState’s solution is integrated into the development workflow from the beginning. The Platform includes the proactive security resolution and advanced build, package, and policy management features needed for modern software development.

"We're thrilled to join with Turn/River," said Bart Copeland, ActiveState CEO, "Their unique model, deep expertise, and, most importantly, their exceptional fit with our culture bring us even closer to realizing our vision for modern software development with the ActiveState Platform."

Dominic Ang, Turn/River Founder and Managing Partner, continued, “ActiveState makes it possible for enterprise customers to harness the power of open source software in a way that meets all of their development, security, and compliance needs. We are thrilled to make this strategic investment, as well as provide go-to-market expertise, to help the team execute on their vision for making open source software ubiquitous and secure for enterprise users.”

ActiveState was advised by legal counsel McCarthy Tétrault LLP. Turn/River Capital was advised on its investment by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

About ActiveState

ActiveState helps enterprises manage the complexity and risk of using open source languages at scale, while giving developers the kinds of tools they love to use. More than 2 million developers and 97% of Fortune 1000 enterprises use ActiveState to support mission-critical systems and speed up software development while enhancing oversight and increasing quality. For more information, please visit www.activestate.com.

About Turn/River Capital

Turn/River specializes in growth capital investments, founder liquidity, buyouts, spin-outs, and recapitalizations of technology, web, and SaaS companies. Its strategy is to combine rigorous, iterative marketing, sales, and operational execution with flexible capital to help companies double and triple their growth and build value for everyone. Turn/River Capital is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.turnriver.com.

i In an audit of 1250 commercial codebases across 17 different industries, 99% of the codebases included open source with open source making up 70% of the total code. – “2020 Open Source Security & Risk Analysis Report”, Synopsys
ii 95% of respondents to RedHat’s 2020 State of Enterprise Open Source Survey say that open source is strategically important.
iii Respondents to RedHat’s 2020 State of Enterprise Open Source Survey estimated that 55% of their organization's software is open source, with 77% forecasting increased usage of open source in the next 12 months.
iv 2020 Open Source Security & Risk Analysis Report, Synopsys

Contacts

Matt Amico
Turn/River Capital
matt@turnriver.com