Cloud native container management platform Weaveworks shuts its doors

Weaveworks, a startup focusing on cloud native development tooling, announced today on LinkedIn that it would be shutting down, a sad day for any startup.

“I am very sad to announce — officially — that Weaveworks will be closing its doors and shutting down commercial operations. Customers and partners will be working with a financial trustee whom we shall announce soon,” CEO Alexis Richardson, who helped launch the company in 2014, wrote.

The company ran into the issue of uneven sales, a big problem for startups, but especially for ones in Weavework’s position. When it launched in 2014, cloud native was barely on anyone’s lips. Kubernetes wouldn’t launch until the following year, and they were early to market.

But over time, they faced growing competition from companies like Harness Labs and CircleCI, which were much better capitalized. Richardson says while they saw double-digit growth in 2023, sales were “lumpy” and they were running short on capital and a chance to be acquired fell through, he said.

With few prospects, the company had little choice but to take the step of shutting down. Richardson apologized for the company’s predicament in the LinkedIn post. “I can only apologize to everyone for this difficult turn. I could say that this should not have happened, but I know that we are not alone in this market. Bigger vessels have gone astray,” he wrote.

Weaveworks raised a substantial amount of money along the way, over $61 million, per Crunchbase, but its last round was $36 million at the end of 2020. As the economy turned in 2022, as Richardson pointed out, the market got rough for many startups out there. His is only the latest victim.

The company leaves behind some open source software that he says will continue, but the details on how that will happen are not available yet. “The story does not end here — our open source software is used everywhere. I am working with several large organizations to make sure CNCF Flux is in the healthiest state. More on that soon,” he wrote.