Software program improvement is an fascinating job for a lot of causes, however among the many worst and most wasteful components is ready for containerized builds to run and take a look at their purposes.
Developer Kyle Galbraith discovered himself twiddling his thumbs and ready for software program builds too usually, so he was impressed to discover a approach to make them a lot quicker.
That led him to co-found Depot, a quickly rising construct acceleration platform, which at the moment introduced its $4.1 million seed funding spherical led by Felicis, with participation from Y Combinator, Aviso Ventures, Tokyo Black, and a number of other angel traders.
“Today, Depot is a build acceleration platform that makes container image builds and GitHub action workflows up to 40 times faster,” mentioned Kyle Galbraith, CEO and co-founder of Depot, in a video name interview with VentureBeat earlier this week.
This capital infusion is ready to propel Depot’s enlargement and additional improve its platform, which is already making waves within the software program improvement neighborhood.
Depot’s final imaginative and prescient is to make all builds—whether or not native or in steady integration—close to on the spot, with complete ecosystem integration. “The ultimate goal here is to make builds, all builds, whether they’re local or in CI, or whether they’re Docker or GitHub action runners or something else, to make all of those near instant with comprehensive ecosystem integration,” Galbraith mentioned.
The corporate is utilizing the identical Linux VMs as others however is optimizing them with its personal instruments and providers to ship generically quicker construct processes throughout the board.
Depot’s origin story
Based in 2022 by Galbraith and his co-founder Jacob Gillespie, Depot was born out of their expertise as platform and DevOps engineers.
“We started building Depot back in 2022 to effectively make our lives easier as platform engineers,” Galbraith defined.
Depot was created to deal with the inefficiencies and gradual efficiency of container picture builds inside GitHub Actions, a typical ache level in software program improvement.
By placing the construct equipment on cloud digital machines (VMs) and persisting layer cache routinely to actual SSDs, Depot was in a position to orchestrate throughout builds, initially making them 5 occasions quicker initially.
Fast scale-up
Since its inception, Depot has quickly scaled its operations. After launching its beta in 2022, the corporate attracted 10 clients in its first week and gained one other 10 inside simply two to 3 weeks of its full product launch in July 2022. Depot then joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2023 batch, additional accelerating its progress.
Depot’s platform is now serving to over 1,800 organizations, processing 1.3 million builds month-to-month.
“We see 1.3 million builds a month today, so we’re sitting on a wealth of information already to help inform [an AI] model,” Galbraith famous.
Notable shoppers embody PostHog, Wistia, and Semgrep, which have adopted Depot’s answer to streamline their software program improvement processes.
Depot’s platform gives builders pace and cost-savings
The platform leverages optimized Linux VMs with proprietary instruments and providers, supporting native Intel and ARM builds.
Moreover, Depot is well-liked with AI corporations that construct and bundle massive language fashions (LLMs), in addition to with conventional internet app builders and utility service suppliers.
Galbraith emphasised the convenience of use and efficiency advantages that Depot gives. “For container image build acceleration, you create a Depot account, and you literally swap Docker build for Depot build, and you’re done.”
The platform optimizes context switch to ship solely modified information between builds, and it has no found higher restrict on utility dimension, supporting the constructing of a number of terabyte LLM mannequin information.
“We have yet to discover that limit today, especially around LLMs, because some of the things that people are building on Depot, they actually can’t build locally,” Galbraith added.
Dev-centric method
Depot stands out not only for its efficiency but additionally for its customer-centric method. “It’s really fun talking to Depot customers, because they’re like, ‘Oh, I have this one small, really annoying thing with this provider,’ and we’re like, ‘You should 100% tell us, because we’ll probably go fix it, because we hate paper cuts,’” Galbraith shared.
The corporate’s billing and safety practices are additionally tailor-made to deal with frequent ache factors within the trade. “We do a lot of things that we have not liked with other providers. For example, we bill by the minute, but we count by the second,” he mentioned.
Moreover, Depot ensures safety by isolating every construct in a devoted VM. “Unlike other providers, we draw the boundary at the VM. So when you run a build on Depot, whether it’s a GitHub action job or a Docker image build, we give you the entire VM to that build so there are no other customers next door,” Galbraith defined.
What Depot will do with seed funding
Depot’s seed funding will assist the corporate broaden its choices, specializing in new construct inputs that may additional speed up improvement processes.
The corporate is at the moment increasing help to incorporate macOS and Home windows environments, which can broaden its attraction to a wider vary of builders.
This enlargement is a important step in Depot’s mission to optimize software program builds for builders worldwide. The corporate additionally plans to companion with different providers, comparable to Fly.io, and develop AI-powered construct optimization strategies utilizing a fine-tuned mannequin.
Jake Storm, a Associate at Felicis, highlighted the potential influence of Depot’s know-how on the broader software program improvement trade. “Depot is scaling the build acceleration platform that will revolutionize developer productivity in all environments,” Storm famous. The platform’s capability to streamline each native and steady integration builds positions it as a transformative software for builders looking for to boost their workflows.
Depot’s speedy progress and progressive method to fixing construct inefficiencies have made it a standout within the tech trade. As the corporate continues to broaden its platform and attain, it’s rapidly changing into a important piece of infrastructure for builders aiming to hurry up their software program improvement cycles.
Correction: This text initially misstated certainly one of Depot’s present clients. It has since been up to date and corrected. We apologize and remorse the error.
