Public Sector Account Executive - Civilian

From silicon valley to Clerkenwell: Chainguard makes London The centre of its $200M expansion. $200M, 200 jobs and A new London hq: Chainguard bets big on Europe's AI cybersecurity market. US cybersecurity company Chainguard has announced a $200 million investment commitment across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, alongside plans to create 200 regional roles and establish a new London headquarters for its EMEA operations. The expansion follows reported annual recurring revenue growth of more than 400% and an 800% increase in its regional customer base as businesses seek stronger protection against software supply-chain attacks. London has secured another significant international technology investment as cybersecurity specialist Chainguard commits $200 million to expanding its operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The company, which specialises in securing open-source software, has selected Clerkenwell as the headquarters for its EMEA business, with a new office at 3 Herbal Hill. The expansion includes plans for 200 additional roles across engineering, sales and customer success throughout the region. Chainguard says the investment reflects rising demand for software security as artificial intelligence changes how vulnerabilities can be discovered and exploited. For London, the announcement adds to the capital's position as a centre for international cybersecurity companies seeking access to European customers, specialist technology talent and financial services businesses. $200 million behind the expansion. Chainguard established its EMEA presence in October 2023 and says its regional business has expanded rapidly since then. Over the past 12 months, annual recurring revenue in EMEA increased by more than 400%, while its customer base grew by 800%. The company has not disclosed the underlying revenue figures or the starting number of regional customers, making it difficult to assess the absolute scale of that growth. Nevertheless, the expansion indicates strong commercial momentum in a cybersecurity market where organisations are increasingly concerned about the security of third-party software. Chainguard now serves more than 800 customers worldwide, including major technology and industrial businesses. Its EMEA customers include Aleph Alpha, Cato Networks and Siemens. Why AI is changing the cybersecurity market. The company's investment is driven partly by the growing security challenges associated with open-source software. Modern applications frequently depend on externally developed software components, which can contain vulnerabilities that organisations did not introduce themselves. Chainguard cites industry research indicating that open-source software accounts for more than 90% of the code in modern applications. The concern is that artificial intelligence could make it easier for attackers to identify weaknesses and combine multiple vulnerabilities into effective attacks. While the speed and capabilities of individual AI systems vary, advances in automated code analysis have increased pressure on organisations to strengthen software security before vulnerabilities can be exploited. Ian Burley, Group Vice President, EMEA, at Chainguard, believes conventional approaches are becoming inadequate. "Pulling open source straight from public registries is like picking a USB stick up off the pavement and plugging it into your laptop. Maybe you could survive that when finding a flaw took a human engineer months, but you can't now that a model does it in an afternoon." The company's approach centres on providing hardened, production-ready software components designed to reduce vulnerabilities before applications are deployed. Its proposition is that prevention can reduce the amount of time engineering teams spend identifying and fixing security problems after software has entered production. London becomes the regional command centre. Chainguard's new Clerkenwell office will act as its EMEA hub. The location will provide a base for nearly 70 employees already working in the UK, while supporting regional customers, partners and the wider open-source community. Although the company operates a remote-first employment model, the London office will provide a physical centre for collaboration and customer engagement. Burley was appointed earlier in 2026 to lead Chainguard's regional commercial strategy. He brings approximately 20 years of experience in business-to-business software, including roles associated with Benchling, Snowflake and BMC Software. The planned 200 additional positions will be distributed across EMEA rather than exclusively located in London. Chainguard has not specified how many of the new roles will be based in Britain or provided a detailed timetable for recruitment. Burley said: "Some of the best engineering and security teams we work with are in EMEA, and they know prevention is the only option. We're putting $200 million, a London office, and 200 new roles behind them, so more organisations across EMEA can put an end to AI supply chain attacks." Regulation adds to the commercial opportunity. The expansion comes as European organisations face increasing scrutiny over software security and operational resilience. Relevant requirements include the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act, the NIS2 Directive and the Cyber Resilience Act, alongside payment security standards such as PCI DSS. These frameworks do not impose identical obligations on every organisation, but they contribute to growing demand for stronger security controls, supply-chain oversight and evidence of compliance. The financial services, healthcare and critical infrastructure sectors are particularly sensitive to disruptions affecting essential systems. For suppliers such as Chainguard, the opportunity extends beyond helping companies identify vulnerabilities. Customers increasingly want to demonstrate that the software components they use have been produced, maintained and deployed through reliable processes. Global shipping group highlights customer demand. One of Chainguard's customers is international shipping group Hapag-Lloyd, which uses the company's technology as part of its software security arrangements. Daniel Höpfner, Chief Architect and Head of Cloud Engineering at Hapag-Lloyd, said: "By fundamentally reducing supply chain risk in our platforms with Chainguard, we strengthened the reliability of a system that supports global shipping operations across hundreds of ports and thousands of daily transactions. Just as importantly, we achieved this without diverting engineering capacity from our broader Freight Information System transformation." "That balance between resilience, scalability, and execution speed is what makes working with Chainguard truly valuable for Hapag-Lloyd." The example illustrates the potential business impact of software supply-chain security in industries where digital systems support large-scale commercial operations. The next phase of growth. Chainguard was named a Leader in the inaugural Gartner Magic Quadrant for Software Supply Chain Security in June 2026, according to the company's announcement. Its global customer base includes Canva, DocuSign, OpenAI, Snap and Snowflake. The company is backed by venture capital investors including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins. Its latest commitment represents a substantial expansion of its regional ambitions, although the $200 million figure is a multi-year EMEA investment rather than a confirmed amount being spent immediately in London. The business will now need to translate rapid percentage growth into sustained revenue, customer retention and successful regional recruitment. For the UK technology sector, the announcement provides another example of an international software company selecting London as its operational base for a wider European and regional market. As artificial intelligence accelerates software development and changes the cybersecurity threat landscape, Chainguard is betting that businesses will spend more on preventing vulnerabilities from entering their systems in the first place. Its $200 million commitment suggests it expects that demand to continue growing.

Chainguard launches hardened dev environments for AI agents. Software supply chain security company Chainguard announced two beta products aimed at securing code produced by both human developers and AI agents. The announcements came at the company's Assemble London event. Get Free Daily Insights to Stay Ahead in Your Entrepreneurial Journey. Table of Contents The two products. Chainguard Workspaces provides remote development environments built on hardened microVMs. The goal is a contained, secured execution layer for running code regardless of whether a developer or an AI agent wrote it. Chainguard Checks moves continuous integration directly into the development loop rather than keeping it as a post-commit gate. Security feedback arrives earlier in the workflow. Why AI agents change the equation. AI coding agents write and execute code at a pace and volume that traditional CI pipelines weren't designed for. Hardened execution environments and tighter feedback loops are a reasonable response to that problem. Chainguard is positioning both products as infrastructure for that shift. Both products are currently in beta. No pricing details were announced. Cagri Sarigoz ( Founder) I'm founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs. With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I'm dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips. At BizStack, I aim to cut through the digital noise to provide clear, actionable advice. And more than all else, I'm a father to a (always) little girl and a husband. Contact me at [email protected] for assistance.