No time to read? Just listen to the news!
TL;DR
- Laravel raises $57M Series A from Accel, with Taylor Otwell remaining as CEO and committed to open-source development
- Laravel Cloud launched, a platform for shipping and monitoring Laravel and PHP applications, with another product to be announced at Laracon AU
- Laravel expands team with world-class engineering and leadership to shape the future of the company and its products
- Accel’s investment aligns with their understanding of open-source and developer-focused tooling, having previously invested in Sentry, Vercel, and Linear
Laravel, the company behind the popular open-source PHP web application framework, announced on September 5, 2024, that it has raised $57 million in a Series A funding round led by Accel Partners LP. The investment will support the expansion of Laravel’s team, its commitment to open-source development, and the launch of its new cloud platform, Laravel Cloud.
Founded in 2011 by Taylor Otwell, Laravel has become a widely adopted framework known for its elegant syntax and robust toolkit for developers. The framework simplifies common tasks such as routing, authentication, and caching, enabling developers to build powerful web applications more efficiently.
In a tweet announcing the funding, Otwell emphasized his continued role as CEO and the company’s dedication to open-source development, stating, “I’m still leading Laravel as CEO, and I’m working closely with all of our teams to ensure we’re building the best products possible for our community.” He also highlighted that since partnering with Accel, Laravel has hired additional engineering support dedicated to open-source development.
The funding has already resulted in the development of Laravel Cloud, a fully managed platform designed to simplify web application deployment for Laravel developers. The platform, which was demoed at Laracon, offers features such as free sandbox tiers, pay-per-use pricing for compute resources, and built-in support for scaling and resource management.
Accel, known for its investments in open-source and developer-focused tooling, including Sentry, Vercel, and Linear, expressed its support for Otwell’s vision. Miles Clement, an Accel partner, told Fortune that the firm had been pursuing Laravel for more than a year before the deal came to fruition.
With a current team of 35 employees, Laravel boasts an impressive list of users, including Apple Inc., OpenAI, Block Inc., Zillow Group Inc., OpenTable Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., and Pfizer Inc. The Series A funding marks the first time Laravel has raised external capital in its 13-year history.
As part of its growth plans, Laravel is building a world-class engineering and leadership team to shape the future of shipping and monitoring Laravel and PHP applications. The company plans to announce another product at Laracon AU in November.
Despite the significant investment, Otwell reassured the community that Laravel remains committed to its open-source roots, with the founder remaining the primary curator of all features in the Laravel framework. Recent developments, such as Inertia 2.0 and the company’s first-party VS Code extension, are a direct result of Laravel’s increased open-source engineering capacity.
