HashiCorp is the subject of furious industry talk which indicates the company is contemplating a sale amid an increasingly challenging marketplace.

Loquacious individuals "with knowledge of the matter" told publication Bloomberg that upper management at the software biz are [1]evaluating all the available options .

In a statement sent to The Register , HashiCorp told us it doesn't comment on "speculation/rumors, as they are just that," yet we note that the investment world has become a more ruthless place over the last year or so, particularly for companies where AI doesn't have an obvious application.

[2]

Others, including [3]Twilio , have been pressured by activist investors, resulting in reorganizations and the departure of its CEO. HashiCorp has also seen [4]one of its co-founders exit and the business come under scrutiny both before and after its controversial licensing change.

[5]

[6]

HashiCorp's adoption of the Business Source License (BSL) was greeted with [7]dismay by many in the open source community and effectively pulled the company's flagship Terraform project from the FOSS world.

[8]HashiCorp loses its Hashi, keeps the Corp as co-founder waves goodbye

[9]Open source forkers stick an OpenBao in the oven

[10]The battle between open source and 'sort of' open source is as old as software

[11]HashiCorp CEO talks license changes and the role of foundations

Following the change, users could – in theory – look at the source code for Terraform. However, using the code for production purposes was a prohibited unless a special commercial license was purchased.

"Source available is not open source," [12]Chris Aniszczyk , CTO of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, told The Register in September.

One upshot was that the Terraform infrastructure management project was forked, and [13]OpenTofu (a rebrand of OpenTF) was born.

[14]

The Register spoke to HashiCorp's CEO, David McJannet, at the company's HashiConf shindig [15]last year . While the prospect of a sale was not mentioned, McJannet did suggest that a license move similar to the one the company made was becoming increasingly inevitable for other orgs as well.

He told us: "I don't know what else the alternative is for a lot of these startups."

The transition from a stratospheric valuation to something that has to start paying its way is tricky. A sale may return value to investors, and HashiCorp's technology will be attractive to suitors seeking management tools for their clouds.

[16]

HashiCorp's share price peaked at the end of December 2021 at $91.04 and at the time of writing is $28.80. The market capitalization is $5.2 billion. ®

Get our [17]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-15/software-company-hashicorp-is-said-to-weigh-potential-sale

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZfhzJn@9QQDde10zCjzbRAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/twilio_ceo_steps_down_amid/

[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/15/hashimoto_departs_hashicorp/

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZfhzJn@9QQDde10zCjzbRAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfhzJn@9QQDde10zCjzbRAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/11/hashicorp_bsl_licence/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/15/hashimoto_departs_hashicorp/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/08/hashicorp_openbao_fork/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/27/open_source_vs_sort_of_open_source/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/19/hashicorp_ceo_license_changes/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/29/cncf_cto_chris_aniszczyk_talks/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/20/terraform_fork_opentf_opentofu/

[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZfhzJn@9QQDde10zCjzbRAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/19/hashicorp_ceo_license_changes/

[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfhzJn@9QQDde10zCjzbRAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/