IBM announced on Tuesday its acquisition of Kubecost, a FinOps startup that specializes in helping teams monitor and optimize their Kubernetes clusters. The startup emphasizes efficiency and cost reduction and has worked with companies like Allianz, Audi, Rakuten, and GitLab.
The acquisition follows IBM’s $4.3 billion purchase of Apptio in 2023, another significant player in the FinOps space. Since its launch in 2019, Kubecost has aimed to optimize global infrastructure. We started with Kubernetes cost monitoring, and we’ve proudly become the most widely adopted solution in the cloud-native ecosystem,” Kubecost co-founder and CEO Webb Brown wrote on the company blog.
Now, as part of IBM, we’re poised to accelerate our mission by delivering broader, end-to-end cost management solutions to teams everywhere,” Brown added.
IBM enhances FinOps with Kubecost acquisition
Kubecost is the driving force behind OpenCost, a vendor-neutral open-source project launched in 2022.
The project integrates into the Cloud Native Computing Foundation cohort. IBM plans to integrate Kubecost into its existing portfolio, which includes Cloudability and Turbonomic. There is a possibility of deeper integration with IBM’s OpenShift enterprise platform.
The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Kubecost raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Coatue Management in 2022, following a $5.5 million seed round led by First Round Capital. By bolstering its IT and FinOps capabilities through strategic acquisitions, IBM continues to position itself as a leader in managing increasingly complex cloud and on-prem infrastructure.
The company aims to address the needs of modern enterprises.
