On March 18, 2021, GitLab — the world’s second-largest open source software company — announced that JiHu Information Technology (Hubei) Co., Ltd. has officially registered in Wuhan, China. It is the first high-tech enterprise to enter the Chinese market under the “Sino-foreign joint venture 3.0” structure holding exclusive licensing of leading foreign technology and brands, and it raised several hundred million yuan in its first funding round.
JiHu will provide the Chinese market with a localized one-stop open source DevOps platform covering the full software innovation lifecycle, plus related customized products and solutions.
Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and CEO of GitLab, said: “Through this partnership with Sequoia Capital China and Gaocheng Capital, JiHu will have complete autonomy at the strategic, technical, product, pricing and operational levels.”
Reportedly, JiHu will localize the GitLab DevOps platform and enterprise solutions for Chinese users while staying continuously in sync with GitLab’s international releases. At the same time, JiHu develops and operates its own GitLab CN open source code repository (codename: JH), shipping a Chinese distribution of GitLab — GitLab JH — holding independent IP and achieving 100% localized independent operation.
JiHu operates as an independent company with full autonomy over its own governance structure, management team and CEO, along with business support functions (including engineering, sales, and marketing), finance, legal, HR, and customer support. JiHu offers a China-specific distribution of the GitLab DevOps platform, available as both a self-managed product and a SaaS offering (GitLab.cn), continuously updated, featuring accessible functionality and software tailored to Chinese companies. JiHu’s SaaS service (GitLab.cn) and GitLab Inc.’s SaaS service (GitLab.com) share no common infrastructure, network connections, systems, services, data, or resources.
Related post: GitLab licensed its technology to new independent Chinese company