A former Chainguard employee publicly reported being affected by layoffs. No formal company-wide layoff count or restructuring announcement was found, so the scope is unverified.
SourcePublic company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Aug 2, 2026
Chainguard, Inc. is a privately held cybersecurity company founded by open-source and cloud-native pioneers. It describes itself as the “trusted source for open source,” delivering hardened, continuously updated, verifiable software artifacts so engineering and AI teams can build faster, meet compliance requirements, and reduce software-supply-chain risk. [Chainguard About; company launch post]
Primary product
Chainguard’s primary product family is its catalog of secure-by-default Chainguard Containers: minimal container images built from source, continuously rebuilt, signed, and supplied with SBOMs, provenance, and vulnerability-remediation commitments. The portfolio now also includes Libraries, VMs, OS Packages, Actions, Agent Skills, Factory, and Scanners.
Founded
2021
Headquarters
Kirkland, Washington, United States
Team size
Approximately 500–600 employees (third-party/current-profile estimate; directory sources report wider ranges, including about 580–706).
Work style
70 jobs at Chainguard
Remote
Industry
Computer and network security
Sub-industry
Software supply-chain security; secure open-source infrastructure; DevSecOps/cloud-native security
Offices
Business model
Stage
Late-stage, venture-backed; Series D plus subsequent non-dilutive/revenue-linked financing
Total raised
$892M
Latest round
Non-dilutive financing / Customer Value Fund facility · Oct 2025
Latest amount
$280M
Non-dilutive financing / Customer Value Fund
Oct 2025 · General Catalyst
Oct 2025 · General Catalyst
Apr 2025 · Kleiner Perkins and IVP
Jul 2024 · Redpoint Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and IVP
Nov 2023 · Spark Capital
Jun 2022 · Sequoia Capital
Dec 2021 · Amplify Partners
Leadership
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder
Ville Aikas
Co-Founder
Chief Financial Officer
Quincy Castro
Chief Information Security Officer
Chief Marketing Officer
Chief Revenue Officer
SVP, Product
Dustin Kirkland
SVP, Engineering
VP, People
Lindsey Krieger
VP, General Counsel
Founders
Kim Lewandowski
Co-Founder
Scott Nichols
Co-Founder
Investors
Chainguard presents a remote-first, people-centric culture built around open-source stewardship and secure-by-default engineering. Its published engineering principles are: reduce complexity, empower individuals, engineer the value proposition, and ensure production excellence. Benefits and recruiting materials emphasize autonomy, distributed work, team meetups, and strong equity participation.
Work style
Remote
Compensation
Public job listings show senior technical and solutions roles commonly advertised around roughly $157,000–$231,000 base salary in the United States, plus equity; exact ranges vary by role and geography. Chainguard states that it grants stock options at hire and promotion and allows a 10-year exercise period. Public visa records show historical H-1B activity but no recent FY2025 LCA filings in the cited database; sponsorship should be confirmed per role.
Benefits
Pricing
Containers: free access to up to five images, per-image licensing, or catalog licensing by engineering-organization size; catalog pricing starts at $19,000 for a 10-person team. Libraries are licensed by language ecosystem and developer count. VMs offer per-image/scoped enterprise and catalog models. Enterprise pricing is quote-based.
Differentiators
Technology
Customers
Competitors
Estimated revenue
Approximately $40 million ARR reported by Chainguard for FY2025; treat as an ARR/revenue signal rather than audited annual revenue. Third-party directory estimates vary substantially.
Estimated monthly visits
163.2K
A former Chainguard employee publicly reported being affected by layoffs. No formal company-wide layoff count or restructuring announcement was found, so the scope is unverified.
SourceThird-party LinkedIn/company-directory signals list several departures, including co-founder Kim Lewandowski and other leaders/employees. Kim publicly described stepping back from Chainguard in June 2026; this is a leadership transition, not evidence of a shutdown.
SourceChainguard Unchained / company announcement listing · Jul 2026
Chainguard reported that Booz Allen would roll out Chainguard Containers to more than 6,000 engineers across defense, intelligence, and federal civilian programs.
SiliconANGLE · Jun 2026
Repository’s malware scanning and policy controls expanded beyond JavaScript to Java, Python, and container images.
PR Newswire / Chainguard · Apr 2026
Chainguard announced a partnership with Cursor to provide hardened, verifiable containers and language libraries for AI-generated software workflows.
Chainguard Unchained · Mar 2026
Chainguard announced OS Packages, Catalog Starter, Commercial Builds, Repository, Actions, Agent Skills, and the Guardener, broadening its secure-artifact catalog.
Reuters · Oct 2025
General Catalyst provided $280 million of non-dilutive, revenue-linked financing after Chainguard’s $356 million Series D, intended to fund go-to-market expansion in the U.S. and Europe.