I was surprised when I saw the Chef numbers, ouch. I think they must have been simply running out of money and options. If they had a strong balance sheet, you would have expected them to at least be picked up by a reputable PE firm. I hadn’t even come across Progress As a software co till this announcement.
On Puppet, I think they are a different beast to Chef at this point. They seem hyper focused on the larger enterprises rather than SMB or startup land. I came across them at both of the banks I recently contracted for, for example. Whilst I wasn’t hands on myself, there was a big project to roll out Puppet’s impact analysis and CD product at the last place.
I also ‘think’ Puppet are about double the size of Chef and saw their BlackRock debt round announced. You don’t get money from someone like that unless your at scale and you don’t get debt (especially at a time like this) unless you can afford the payments+interest. So, they must be at least growing if not profitable as well.
On Puppet, I think they are a different beast to Chef at this point. They seem hyper focused on the larger enterprises rather than SMB or startup land. I came across them at both of the banks I recently contracted for, for example. Whilst I wasn’t hands on myself, there was a big project to roll out Puppet’s impact analysis and CD product at the last place.
I also ‘think’ Puppet are about double the size of Chef and saw their BlackRock debt round announced. You don’t get money from someone like that unless your at scale and you don’t get debt (especially at a time like this) unless you can afford the payments+interest. So, they must be at least growing if not profitable as well.