What Kaleidos does

Kaleidos is a private open-source technology company headquartered in Madrid, Spain, operating through Kaleidos, Inc. (a Delaware-incorporated parent) and its Spanish branch, Kaleidos INC Sucursal en España. Founded in 2011, the company develops and maintains two primary open-source products: Penpot, a web-based design and prototyping platform positioned as the first open-source design tool built for designer-developer collaboration with native CSS Grid Layout generation and design token support; and Taiga, an agile project management platform supporting KANBAN and other views. The company also incubates adjacent products through its biannual PIWEEK innovation cycle, including Patio (a team mood-tracking tool) and HelpButtons (a mutual-support community platform). Kaleidos maintains a small, globally distributed team of 11–50 employees organized under a horizontal, self-managed structure.

The company's business model is fundamentally freemium and community-driven: both Penpot and Taiga are distributed free under open-source licenses and are available for self-hosting, with revenue — to the extent it exists — generated through ancillary channels such as enterprise/premium support tiers, professional services, and investment funding rather than per-seat subscriptions. Go-to-market is product-led and community-led: distribution flows through GitHub, self-service downloads from penpot.app and taiga.io, content marketing, conference participation, and word-of-mouth within the open-source community, with no evidence of a traditional enterprise sales motion. The customer base spans design teams, software development teams, public-sector organizations, and nonprofits; Taiga alone is reported as used by more than 1 million people in over 150 countries, and notable engagements include the Community of Madrid's #VenceAlVirus hackathon and humanitarian crisis-mapping work with Ushahidi.

Kaleidos has raised approximately $20 million in cumulative funding, comprising an $8 million Series A announced in September 2022 and a roughly $12 million exempt offering filed via SEC Form D in March 2023. The company is led by CEO Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz, alongside CTO Pablo Alba, COO Yamila Moreno, and CIO Alejandro Alonso. Despite the capital raised, the company remains effectively pre-revenue in commercially conventional terms — no pricing tiers, ARR, or revenue figures are publicly disclosed — which is a structural feature of its open-source distribution model rather than a standalone weakness.

Name

Kaleidos

Legal name

KALEIDOS INC SUCURSAL EN ESPAÑA

Website

https://kaleidos.net

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Kaleidos is a Madrid-based open-source software company developing Penpot (a free design and prototyping platform) and Taiga (an agile project management tool), serving design and development teams globally through a community-driven, product-led, freemium go-to-market model.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Design Collaboration Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Open-Source & Developer Communities (BPAMABAM)

akta.pro secondary industry

Developer Portals, SDKs & Documentation Platforms (BPAMADAG)

Keywords

• Open-source design platform
• Design collaboration software
• Open-source project management
• Agile project management
• Design prototyping tools

Headquarters

HQ city

Madrid

HQ country

Spain

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Open-source product development: Kaleidos develops open-source products (Penpot, Taiga) and generates revenue through community contributions, professional services, and potential premium/enterprise features while maintaining open-source foundations.
2. Investment funding: SEC Form D filing indicates Kaleidos filed for an exempt offering of approximately $12 million under Rule 506(b), with minimum investment of $150,000.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Kaleidos is a people-first, open-source tech company that develops and maintains digital products with positive social impact. Its core offerings are Penpot, the first open-source design and prototyping platform for collaborative Design and Code workflows (with native CSS Grid Layout and design tokens), and Taiga, an open-source agile project management platform used by over one million people in more than 150 countries. Both products are built on open standards, available for self-hosting, and supported by an active open-source community.

Product overview

Kaleidos is a people-first, open-source tech company that builds digital products with a positive social impact. The company focuses exclusively on developing two open-source products: Penpot, the flagship open-source design platform for design and code collaboration that enables scalable team workflows between designers and developers, and Taiga, an open-source project management platform designed for agile teams. Both products are available for self-hosting and are built with community contributions at their core.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Penpot: Open-source design platform for teams that need scalable collaboration between designers and developers. The first open-source design platform for Design and Code collaboration.
• Taiga

Products and services

• Penpot Penpot is the first open-source design and prototyping platform purpose-built for collaboration between designers and developers. It offers native CSS Grid Layout generation, design token support, and SVG-native format, enabling scalable team workflows and developer handoff without vendor lock-in. It is available for self-hosting and via cloud, and is intended for design teams, UX/UI professionals, and product teams seeking an alternative to Figma or Adobe Creative Suite.
• Taiga Taiga is an open-source agile project management platform supporting multilingual and multidisciplinary collaboration across 150+ countries. It is used by software development teams, government programs, and nonprofits to manage projects via KANBAN and other agile views.
• Patio Patio is an open-source team mood tracking tool that measures employee happiness through daily email prompts on a 1-5 scale, with optional text or GIF responses. It is intended for distributed teams seeking lightweight, low-friction morale monitoring.

Quantifiable outcome

• Taiga used by 1M+ people in 150+ countries
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• SequoyascoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partner for delegated work including systems administration. Long-term relationship (5+ years) with strong alignment on values. Collaborated on Patio project during PIWEEK.
• Rojo2coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBusiness partner for collaborative projects and shared values alignment. Partner for outsourced work and workload peaks.
• FlossystemscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBusiness partner aligned with free software values. Partner for collaborative projects and technology initiatives.
• HelpButtons (Wof, AlbJeremias)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative project during PIWEEK to finish HelpButtons prototype for building collaborative tools. Wof and AlbJeremias were external developers working with Kaleidos team members.
• CocoMaterial (Esther Moreno)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOpen-source hand-drawn illustration library created by Esther Moreno, a designer associated with Kaleidos. Used for blog illustrations and company design materials.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• OpenProject: OpenProject is an open-source project management and collaboration tool, one of the closest direct peers to Taiga in both open-source licensing and PM functionality. Both target teams seeking Jira alternatives with self-hosting and open standards.
• Leantime: Leantime is an open-source project management system aimed at small teams and non-project managers. It targets a similar horizontal SMB and open-source-leaning segment as Taiga, though with a different feature emphasis.
• Wekan: Wekan is an open-source Kanban board application that overlaps with Taiga's KANBAN-centric project management positioning. Both are community-driven, self-hostable tools competing for the same privacy-conscious and open-source-leaning teams.

Broad incumbents

• Asana: Asana is a leading work and project management platform serving horizontal team collaboration. It competes with Taiga for cross-functional team workflows and agile project tracking, particularly in mid-market and enterprise segments.
• Jira (Atlassian): Atlassian's Jira is the dominant agile project management platform competing with Taiga. Both target software development teams using KANBAN and Scrum methodologies; Kaleidos's pitch mirrors Taiga's: open-source, self-hostable alternative to Atlassian's proprietary stack.
• Adobe (Creative Cloud / XD): Adobe is the incumbent creative software giant whose Creative Suite and XD design tools overlap heavily with Penpot's functionality. As a broad incumbent, Adobe bundles design tools into enterprise-wide agreements that Penpot's open-source model directly challenges on price and lock-in.

Direct peers

• Sketch: Sketch is a long-standing Mac-based design and prototyping tool with strong agency adoption. It overlaps with Penpot in target buyer (design teams, agencies) and category (collaborative design tooling), making it a direct competitor for budget and workflow share.
• Framer: Framer is a web-based design and site publishing tool that competes with Penpot in the collaborative design + code handoff category. Both target modern product teams looking to bridge design and production-ready output in the browser.
• Figma: Figma is the dominant collaborative design platform that Penpot directly positions against as an open-source alternative. Both serve design teams with browser-based collaborative editing and developer handoff; Kaleidos's entire differentiation rests on being the open-source, self-hostable counter to Figma.
• InVision: InVision is a collaborative design and prototyping platform that historically competed directly with Penpot's core use case of design-to-developer handoff. While InVision has narrowed its focus, it remains a reference point for the collaborative design tooling category Penpot competes in.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/kaleidosnet
• GitHubgithub.com/kaleidos
• Instagraminstagram.com/kaleidosnet

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kaleidos