GitLab's founder sold $101M in three sessions, months after the 14% layoffs

A $103.7M notice, then three days of selling

On 24 September the Sytse Sijbrandij Revocable Trust filed notice to sell 2,116,200↗ GitLab shares, listed at an aggregate $103.7M ¹. The trust then sold every one of them: 980,710 shares at $48.63 on 24 September, 705,490 at $47.75 on the 25th, and 430,000 at $45.84 on the 28th, about $101.1M in gross proceeds ²³⁸. Each tranche cleared below the one before it, and the stock closed Monday down 1.4% at $46.21 ².

The CTO filed his own $2.38M sale the same evening

That evening a second set of filings landed from chief technology officer Sivaprasad Padisetty: a Form 144 proposing a 51,915-share sale, accepted by EDGAR at 16:21 ET, then the Form 4 reporting it at 18:58↗ ⁴⁵. He grossed $2.38M in three trades priced between $44.83 and $46.32 ⁴. The shares were restricted units vested on 15 September, and he had already sold 30,888 shares on 16 September for $1.5M, a disposal his Form 4 tagged as tax withholding on the vesting ¹⁵.

The plans were signed between the layoffs and the beat

Both men sold under Rule 10b5-1 plans, the trust's adopted 25 June and Padisetty's 29 June ¹⁴. Those dates fall after GitLab said in May it would cut about 350 jobs, 14% of staff, and exit 22 countries↗ ⁶, and before the 1 September quarter that beat on revenue and EPS ². The schedule is the defense: a June plan is not a reaction to a September print, but it is still a founder supplying $101M of stock into a bid his own company spent the summer building.

The beat was bookings; GAAP went the other way

What the buyers underwrote: revenue of $286.3M, up 21%, net ARR growth above 40%, record gross bookings, and a 15% non-GAAP operating margin ⁷. What the GAAP ledger shows: a $56.9M operating loss carrying $19.4M of restructuring charges from the May plan, a $36.8M net loss, and negative $3.1M of operating cash flow ⁷. GitLab had narrowed its operating loss to $5.2M by the January quarter ⁹, and in the same quarter it cut one in seven staff it repurchased about 3.5 million of its own shares for $104.6M ⁷.

The other side of the ledger is 95% institutional

Ownership is 95.04% institutional ². Atreides Management opened a new $103.0M position, and Norges Bank and State Street both added ²³. Analysts lifted targets toward a $51.75 consensus ². Sijbrandij keeps 12,785,851 shares directly, worth $586.1M at his last sale price ³, and no filing by either man states a view on the company beyond the standard 10b5-1 representation.

The next notice is the tell

Watch EDGAR for the trust's next Form 144: the September notice covered only these 2,116,200 shares ¹. The second-quarter report↗ guides October-quarter revenue of $281M to $283M ⁷. The tell is the clearing price on any fourth tranche: the first three fell with every sale.