Announcement from the DEV Community Founders ❤️

We’re excited to share with you all that we’re taking a new step in the DEV journey.

We have taken on some new investors in order to help keep the lights on and grow our inclusive community of software developers. We set out to raise about $750k from open-source enthusiasts and authentic supporters of the DEV community. With an overwhelming amount of enthusiasm, we wound up raising about $950k in order to get a lot of great folks involved.

Importantly, we still have a three-person board consisting only of myself, Jess and Peter. Our founding team, therefore, still has full control over the project’s direction. We fundamentally saw this process as a way to bring in some great new partners from the industry. Our new backers will help us build DEV into the best version of what it can be. That’s probably what everyone says, but I think it’s quite true in this case.

In order to ensure that the round was made up of good people who understood our values, we took checks as low as $5k from developers and industry professionals who qualified as accredited investors. Our lead investor is OSS Capital, led by Joseph Jacks. Joseph founded Kubecon and is a very active participant in Kubernetes and other open source initiatives. As the fund's name might imply, they invest exclusively in open source, and we are actually their very first investment.

Here is the list of the rest of the investors involved. We're keeping the bios relatively brief, so we can’t do everyone full justice.

• Amjad Masad — Founder of repl.it, formerly founding engineer at Codeacademy and Facebook engineer. Contributed to Babel and other projects.
• Tracy Chou — Software engineer/entrepreneur, formerly at Pinterest, Quora and other. Founding advisor for Project Include.
• Charge Ventures — NY-based pre-seed venture fund that loves technical projects. The founding team, especially Brett Martin, has specific experience and insight related to building social platforms.
• Ohad Eder-Pressman — Programmer, entrepreneur and angel investor. Founded AppSharp & 3D3R Software. Early Investor in Netlify, IFTTT, and others.
• Alex Sirota — Programmer, entrepreneur. Founder of Loop Commerce, creator of several web tools you’ve probably used.
• Matt Biilmann and Christian Bach — Founders of Netlify.
• Brianne Kimmel — SaaS Investor, previously GTM and Tech Integrations at Zendesk.
• Jenny Fielding / Eclectic Fund — Entrepreneur and Managing Director at Techstars.
• The Fund — Early stage venture fund comprised of over 75 NYC-based founders and operators. Co-Founded by Jenny Fielding, Matt Brimer (Co-Founder of General Assembly), Katie Hunt (Third employee @ Warby Parker, Chief Brand Officer @ Hinge), and Adam Carver (Previously Director of Business Development @ Angelist).
• Bruce Karsh — Co-Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at Oaktree Capital.
• Boling Jiang — CEO at Privacy.com.
• John Xie — CEO at Taskade.
• Mike Rothman — CEO at Fatherly.
• Peter Wang — CTO at TheMighty, previously CTO at Refinery29.

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So, what’s next for DEV?

In short, nothing too glamorous. Our day-to-day is going to be more of the same. The new funds will allow us to prioritize sustainable growth and value-enhancing features. We have come this far by being community-first and we want to evolve this technology platform to be as great as the people who spend time here. We have humble origins, and really just want to repay the community for the amazing encouragement along the way.

We will be able to make a few new hires (check out our new openings), but we will be maintaining a modest team size as we continue to build a healthy open source project. We will continue to experiment with and eventually launch new career and education-oriented initiatives. Above all, we’re going to do our best to build this business in a sensible way. Our long-term vision and goal are unchanged: we’ll keep striving to provide an inclusive space for the world’s software developers to evolve their craft.

Same book, new chapter. Happy coding!

Comments

[Peter Kim Frank]

We're so thankful to have partnered with investors that understand and share our long-term vision and priorities. This entire project only works because of the incredible and ongoing contributions from all of you in the DEV community — we'll work hard to always respect that relationship as we grow and evolve.

Thank you for being an integral part of this journey!

[Nitya Narasimhan, Ph.D]

Wow - congratulations Jess, Ben, Peter and the entire DEV team. I continue to be impressed by how deliberate and measured you have been in every decision made, and it's inspiring. Here's to the next phase and future!

[Jess Lee]

Thank you Nitya!

[Ben Halpern]

Thank you Nitya!

Your support has been incredibly motivating.

I very distinctly remember our first time meeting

Nitya Narasimhan

@nitya

Day officially made!! Met the amazing @bendhalpern and @jessleenyc - the quirky + creative minds behind @ThePracticalDev best coffee ever!

21:38 PM - 03 Nov 2016

115

[Nitya Narasimhan, Ph.D]

OMG!! This. I remember this day so well - and its incredible how far you've come while still retaining that core focus & principles that you were articulating then. I am super grateful we met and feel privileged to know you both. Not sure from the tech perspective, but from the larger fact that you are teaching me (and so many more) about empathy & inclusivity by action.

[Jess Lee]

Thanks for being a part of this journey everyone. We look forward to working with everyone to build the platform that our community deserves.

[Sung M. Kim]

const EVER = true;
for (;EVER;) {
 console.log(`Congrats for taking the new step toward the better dev.to~ ❤🦄🔖`)
}

[Ben Halpern]

return ❤️

[Freddy González]

This is one of the reasons why I love developers/programming communities. ❤

[Amjad Masad]

Congratulations to your team and the dev.to community at large! Excited for what's to come and happy to be part of the journey.

[Ben Halpern]

Thank you so much, Amjad! Can't wait to see how we can work together to create the best possible developer ecosystem.

[PotentialStyx]

Woah.... it's amasad

[ohadpr]

Congrats to the DEV team and the awesome community

[Raunak Ramakrishnan]

Congratulations! The dev.to community has been the most friendly and constructive Internet community I've interacted with. Hope that the investment results in even more awesome developers joining this community.

[Ben Halpern]

Thanks for the incredibly kind words. Our intent is to double down on all the efforts that have gone into fostering this so far.

[Scooter Phoenix]

I'm really happy for you and Jess and Peter. You are such a big part of our 'little' community, and looking forward to all the wonderful things that will come next. Wishing you success and propensity for years to come.

[Ben Halpern]

Thank you so much!!

[Nick Taylor]

Congrats and amazing news! Keep up the great work. 🔥💯

[Ben Halpern]

Thanks so much!! Your support has been truly amazing Nick! This is only the beginning of something that will keep growing and becoming more special.

[Ahmad Awais ⚡️]

That is a super awesome news. Congratulations @ben , @jess , and @peter . You folks have done a commendable job. I am happy to see DEV grow. Happy to be a part of it all. 🎉

Peace! ✌️

[Ben Halpern]

Woohoo! Thanka Ahmad!