GitLab
Verified“European-born, American-incorporated, US-cloud-run.”
- Listing
- NASDAQ: GTLB
- FY2025 revenue
- $759.2M
- SaaS hosting
- Google Cloud (US)
- Founder voting
- ~51% -> dispersed
20 = midpoint of Control 14 & Data 26
Sovereignty Quadrant
Control ↑ who owns & governs the company · Data → where your data lives. Every dot is a company — click to open it.
Every number below traces to 14 sourced facts across 10 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 3 open questions hold confidence at 82% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
13
Incorporated in Delaware as GitLab Inc. and governed by US securities law. It was originally a Dutch entity (GitLab B.V.) founded out of Ukraine, but deliberately reincorporated in the US in 2015 because most customers are in North America. No EU operating parent anchors it; EU law reaches it only as a GDPR data exporter/processor, not via an EU corporate seat.
Why 13? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
State and form of incorporation
GitLab FY2025 Form 10-K (SEC EDGAR) · as of 2025-03
Reincorporated from Dutch entity (GitLab B.V.) to US in 2015 because most customers are in North America
GitLab blog: Now operating as GitLab Inc. · as of 2015-07-01
Founders' origins: Ukrainian developer Dmytro Zaporozhets and Dutch developer Sytse (Sid) Sijbrandij
Wikipedia: GitLab Inc. · as of 2026-06
Control & Ownership
15
Publicly listed on NASDAQ (GTLB) with a US economic majority and US-resident control. Through May 2025 founder Sid Sijbrandij held ~51% of voting power via 10-vote Class B shares (a controlled company). On 14 May 2026 he converted all ~15.1M Class B shares to single-vote Class A, collapsing that super-voting bloc; he remains Executive Chair and largest individual Class A holder, with the rest spread across US institutions (e.g. BlackRock ~7% of Class A). Control and economics are US-centered regardless.
Why 15? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Listed on NASDAQ under ticker GTLB (Class A) since IPO Oct 14, 2021
Wikipedia: GitLab Inc. · as of 2026-06
Per FY2025 proxy, Sijbrandij held 51.23% of total voting power via super-voting Class B shares
GitLab FY2025 DEF 14A (SEC EDGAR) · as of 2025-05
Sijbrandij converted all ~15,134,451 Class B shares to Class A on May 14, 2026, ending his super-voting bloc
StockTitan: GTLB 8-K material event · as of 2026-05-14
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
18
GitLab.com SaaS runs on Google Cloud Platform in the United States (primarily us-east1), and GitLab's privacy statement states services are hosted in the US with EEA/UK/Swiss data transferred to the US under the Data Privacy Framework and SCCs. GitLab Dedicated (single-tenant) runs on AWS and can be placed in EU regions (Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Stockholm), but that is still a US hyperscaler exposed to the CLOUD Act, and it is not the default GitLab.com offering.
Why 18? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
Services hosted in the United States; data stored and processed on US servers
GitLab Privacy Statement · as of 2026-06
EEA/UK/Swiss personal data transferred to the US under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses
GitLab Privacy Statement · as of 2026-06
GitLab.com production runs on Google Cloud Platform (primary region us-east1)
GitLab Handbook: Production Architecture · as of 2026-06
GitLab Dedicated runs on AWS with selectable EU regions (Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Stockholm) - still a US hyperscaler
GitLab Docs: Data residency and high availability · as of 2026-06
Operations & People
38
GitLab is one of the world's largest all-remote companies with ~2,375 team members across 60+ countries, giving it a genuinely distributed (and partly European) workforce and engineering base rooted in its Ukrainian/Dutch origins. But it has no headquarters, reports in USD, is run as a US corporation, and its executive leadership is US-centered (CEO Bill Staples since Dec 2024; Executive Chair Sid Sijbrandij resides in the San Francisco Bay Area). Mixed, leaning US.
Why 38? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
All-remote company with ~2,375 team members across 60+ countries
Wikipedia: GitLab Inc. · as of 2025
Remote-only company; maintains no traditional headquarters
GitLab FY2025 Form 10-K (SEC EDGAR) · as of 2025-03
Bill Staples named CEO Dec 5, 2024; Sijbrandij became Executive Chair (resides in SF Bay Area)
GitLab press release: Bill Staples named CEO · as of 2024-12-05
Reports financials in US dollars (FY2025 revenue $759.2M)
GitLab FY2025 Annual Report · as of 2025-03
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
3 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
Exact post-conversion voting distribution: after Sijbrandij's May 2026 Class B->A conversion, how much aggregate Class B super-voting stock remains and who holds it?
Determines whether GitLab still qualifies as a NASDAQ 'controlled company' or has effectively shifted to one-share-one-vote control; affects the ownership score.
- ?
What share of GitLab.com user data, if any, can be pinned to EU regions versus the default US (us-east1) hosting?
GitLab Dedicated offers AWS EU regions, but the standard GitLab.com SaaS appears US-hosted; the EU-residency ceiling for ordinary users is unclear.
- ?
Geographic split of the ~2,375-person workforce (EU vs US vs rest)?
Would sharpen the operations score; '60+ countries' confirms distribution but not the EU weighting.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
SEAL (Sovereign European Assurance Level) targets cloud/infrastructure providers; this is an analogous mapping for a US-incorporated DevSecOps platform, not a certification.
Strategic
US-incorporated, NASDAQ-listed, US-controlled DevSecOps platform; European roots are historical, not structural.
Legal & jurisdictional
Delaware incorporation under US securities law; reachable by EU only as a GDPR data exporter, not via an EU corporate seat.
Data & AI
GitLab.com SaaS data hosted in the US (Google Cloud us-east1); EEA data transferred under the Data Privacy Framework + SCCs.
Operational
Genuinely all-remote across 60+ countries with European engineering heritage, but US-centered leadership and USD reporting.
Supply chain
Core dependency on US hyperscalers (Google Cloud for SaaS, AWS for Dedicated); CLOUD Act exposure even in EU AWS regions.
Technological
Source code is open-core (GitLab Community Edition under MIT); self-managed and Dedicated-on-AWS-EU options reduce lock-in, but the managed SaaS is US-run.
Security & compliance
Mature posture (SOC 2, ISO 27001 family, DPF self-certification, EU AWS regions for Dedicated); compliance is US-/global-framework anchored, not EU-sovereign.
Environmental sustainability
Not evaluated in this profile; inherits Google Cloud / AWS region-level energy profiles.
EU alternatives
Non-profit (Codeberg e.V., Berlin) running open-source Forgejo on EU infrastructure; fully EU-governed Git hosting, though smaller and lighter on enterprise CI/CD.
Same vendor, but single-tenant on AWS EU regions (Frankfurt/Ireland) gives EU data residency; still US-incorporated and CLOUD Act-exposed.
Self-hosting Forgejo/Gitea on an EU sovereign cloud (e.g. OVHcloud, Scaleway) yields full control, at the cost of running your own platform.
How the method works
Methodology v2 (provisional): the score is the midpoint of two axes — Control (who owns and governs the company) and Data (where your data lives and who can reach it). Each axis is scored only on verified evidence; unknowns reduce confidence, never the score. Every input below is sourced; the weights and judgments are open to challenge.
Spotted an error? Every claim is sourced — challenge it and we correct the record.
- 2026-06-12 — Initial golden profile, authored from primary sources (human + AI review).
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Verified 2026-06-12 · Human + AI joint review (sources independently checked) · Methodology