Tutum, a startup building on Docker's hip tech, reels in $2.6M

Last year, a whole bunch of startups launched in Docker’s wake. This week another one of those startups, Tutum, made some progress in the form of some funding.

Docker makes technology for easily packaging up and moving application code from one server environment to another. Tutum, which provides cloud infrastructure for hosting applications that are packaged in Docker containers, disclosed in a regulatory filing yesterday that it has raised $2.65 million.

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Now Tutum can better promote itself and adjust its product in a quest to be the best possible place to run applications Docker-style.

“We think we can really bring in a value add with our solution,” Borja Burgos-Galindo, Tutum’s chief executive and a co-founder, said in an interview with VentureBeat. “We realize it wont be the only one available, but we’re definitely working to make it the best one available.”

Meanwhile, other Docker startups have been picking up momentum. CoreOS, a startup with a Linux operating system that can run Docker containers on servers, has picked up funding and even bought a two-person startup called Quay, which built software for privately managing Docker repositories. And Docker itself acquired a two-person startup, Orchard, which had a Docker hosting service as well as an open-source project that could be useful for Docker-style development.

More generally speaking, I’ve heard investors have been quite interested in the Docker ecosystem, even if making successful business based on open-source technology can pose a challenge for investors and founders alike.

In addition to running “containers as a service” in its cloud, Tutum provides a private Docker repository, monitoring for containers, and scaling features. Tutum’s services start at $4 per month.

Around 1,500 developers use the service, Burgos-Galindo said.

Competitors in the Docker hosting business include Copper.io’s Stackdock service. And big companies like Google have been working on ways to orchestrate containers with tools like the open-source Kubernetes project.

Alongside Tutum founders Burgos-Galindo and Fernando Fernández, Kirill Sheynkman, managing director of RTP Ventures, is named in the new filing. Azure Capital Partners and angel investors also participated. New York-based Tutum is also a Techstars NYC 2014 company.

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Seven people work at the startup, and that number should exceed 12 in time, Burgos-Galindo said.