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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by avidamoeba@lemmy.ca to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

Corporate VPN startup Tailscale secures $230 million CAD Series C on back of “surprising” growth

Pennarun confirmed the company had been approached by potential acquirers, but told BetaKit that the company intends to grow as a private company and work towards an initial public offering (IPO).

“Tailscale intends to remain independent and we are on a likely IPO track, although any IPO is several years out,” Pennarun said. “Meanwhile, we have an extremely efficient business model, rapid revenue acceleration, and a long runway that allows us to become profitable when needed, which means we can weather all kinds of economic storms.”

Keep that in mind as you ponder whether and when to switch to self-hosting Headscale.

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[-] Mordikan@kbin.earth 1 points 1 month ago

Headscale is great if you like networking fun, but that aside I'm not understanding why VC funding is such a black mark to the poster. Tailscale doesn't generate meaningful revenue streams as its early-stage, so it has to secure funding to continue operations until they achieve high enough revenue to go public. That's pretty standard in a business life-cycle, though. It seems like the main complaint is that Tailscale is a business. And what about the Linux Foundation? They are funded through private equity. Should you consider switching away because of that?

[-] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The problem, though, is that VC-funded projects bite off way more than they can chew from the start and have to enshittify to keep shareholders happy at that level.

Growth for the sake of growth is a fundamentally broken concept. Tailscale provides a free service that many use. They already offer a paid support tier for companies, like other certain FOSS projects do, so why not call it good there? Grow based on actual customer needs, instead of shareholder bullshit "needs" (line must go up 🙄).

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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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