Black Founder Achieves Exit: StackShare Sells To Fossa – peopleofcolorintech

FOSSA, a leading open-source compliance and security platform, has acquired StackShare, a developer community platform. 

The move aims to bridge the gap between compliance, security, and developer tools, impacting over 1.5 million developers who use StackShare to share and discuss their tech stacks.

Integration of Developer Tools and Security

FOSSA, valued at over $100 million, started as a tool to help developers manage open-source licenses.

Over the years, it has evolved to offer security vulnerability management and Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) management.

This expansion has positioned FOSSA as a leader in software composition analysis (SCA), serving thousands of customers, including major Fortune 500 companies according to a press release.

StackShare, founded by Yonas Beshawred, has grown into a significant platform for developers to share and discuss their tech stacks.

The platform, which launched in 2014, has over 1.5 million registered users and has been used by more than 40 million developers globally.

FOSSA’s Vision for Integrated Developer Tool

The acquisition started as a partnership known as the Tech Stack File, which allowed developers to see all technologies used in a code base in one file. 

This collaboration revealed a larger opportunity, leading to the merger. 

With this acquisition, FOSSA aims to continue investing in the StackShare community while discontinuing the StackShare Enterprise offering.

StackShare’s mission has been to make developers more productive by learning from trusted peers.

While the StackShare Enterprise offering will be sunsetted, FOSSA plans to introduce a new product that leverages insights gained from StackShare Enterprise.

Beshawred will join FOSSA as a product leader, focusing on integrating StackShare’s strengths into FOSSA’s platform.

Beshawred also highlighted to TechCrunch the importance of representation, noting the support he received from prominent Black investors like Aston Motes and Charles Hudson. 

“We built a product used by over 40 million developers because we were solving a valuable problem,” Beshawred said.

“I hope this inspires more Black people to pursue building in this space.”

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Feature Image Credit: Yonas Beshawred