The platform where almost all software lives. More than 180 million developers and 630 million repositories as of GitHub's 2025 Octoverse report, with a new developer joining roughly every second. GitHub did not just host code. It made open source social and collaborative. Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition in 2018 looked expensive. With GitHub running at $2 billion a year by 2024 and Copilot the main engine of its growth, it now looks like one of the deals of the decade. React, TensorFlow and a huge share of important open-source projects live there. If GitHub went down for a day, much of the software industry would grind to a halt.
Founded
2008
HQ
San Francisco, CA
Total Raised
$350 million (pre-acquisition)
Founder
Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett & Scott Chacon
Status
Acquired by Microsoft (2018) for $7.5 billion
Verified Sep 2026
Website
github.comTHE ORIGIN STORY
Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett and Scott Chacon were developers frustrated by existing code hosting. They built GitHub around Git, Linus Torvalds' distributed version control system, and added a social layer: profiles, followers, pull requests, issues, and the ability to star and fork repositories.
It launched in 2008 and ran profitably without venture money for its first four years. It turned code hosting into a social network for developers, and a GitHub profile became the resume for software engineers.
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO
Freemium SaaS. Free for public and private repositories.
Team at $4 per user per month. Enterprise at $21 per user per month.
On top of that it sells GitHub Copilot, the AI coding assistant, on plans from $10 to $39 a month for individuals plus business tiers, and it charges for GitHub Actions compute, Advanced Security and Codespaces. In 2024 Satya Nadella said GitHub as a whole was running at $2 billion a year, with Copilot driving more than 40% of its revenue growth.
THE PRODUCTS
GitHub Repositories (code hosting), GitHub Copilot (AI coding assistant and coding agent), GitHub Actions (CI/CD), Pull Requests, Issues, GitHub Pages, GitHub Advanced Security, GitHub Codespaces (cloud dev environments).
HOW THEY GREW
AI-powered development through GitHub Copilot, which runs on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google and has grown from autocomplete into an agent that can take an issue and open a pull request by itself. Also expanding GitHub Actions (CI/CD), GitHub Advanced Security (code scanning) and Codespaces.
Since August 2025 GitHub has been run as part of Microsoft's CoreAI group rather than as a standalone company.
THE HARD PART
Balancing open-source goodwill with Microsoft's commercial and AI ambitions. When Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018, developers panicked that it would ruin it.
CEOs Nat Friedman and then Thomas Dohmke spent years proving it would stay developer-first. Then in August 2025 Dohmke announced he was leaving to found a startup, Microsoft chose not to name a new CEO, and GitHub was folded into its CoreAI division.
The challenge now is keeping developers' trust while being run as part of Microsoft's AI business, and while AI-native rivals like Cursor chase the same users.
MONEY TRAIL
Series A
2012 · Led by Andreessen Horowitz
$100M raised
Series B
2015 · Led by Sequoia Capital
$250M raised
WHO BACKED THEM
GitHub bootstrapped for four years, profitable, before taking any venture money. Andreessen Horowitz then led a $100 million Series A in 2012, one of the largest first rounds ever at the time.
Sequoia Capital led a $250 million Series B in 2015, with Thrive Capital and IVP. That $350 million was all it raised before Microsoft bought it.
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Head-to-Head
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