It’s undeniable that businesses are increasingly recognizing the importance of software, and the $250 million that Silicon Valley company GitHub just raised confirms that notion.
On Wednesday, the seven-year-old company confirmed recent rumors that it was raising a funding round north of $200 million, which values the company at roughly $2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. GitHub is favorited by developers due to its free service that lets them store software code in cloud data centers. Its free tier has become a staple tool for developers, from students to hobbyists and even professionals, and its paid tiers, which include privacy and other additional features, are purchased by many tech companies and teams.
GitHub’s software repositories have also become a key tool for the “open source” movement, which centers around making software freely and openly available to everyone, and encourages community contributions to improve and evolve the code. It’s also used by many developers as a way to showcase their skills — a portfolio of sorts — to potential employers, customers, and collaborators.
GitHub co-founder and CEO Chris Wanstrath told the Journal that the company plans to use the new funding to “make really big investments,” expand internationally, and invest in new products.
Last year, GitHub faced public accusations of sexism and harassment toward one of its former employees.
While she was employed as an engineer at GitHub, Julie Ann Horvath, claimed the company didn’t prevent misbehavior from some of her colleagues due to her gender, as well as harassment from another GitHub co-founder, Tom Preston-Werner and his wife. Though an investigation ultimately found no wrongdoing, Preston-Werner resigned as the company’s president and admitted that there may have been some mistakes made along the way. Since the controversy, the company claims it has made significant changes to its human resources department and associated policies.
Nevertheless, investors told the Journal they have total confidence in the company’s leadership.
Sequoia Capital led the round, with Institutional Venture Partners, Thrive Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz also participating. The latter invested $100 million into GitHub in 2012 as the first institutional capital the company ever raised.
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