SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Replit, the startup behind the popular in-browser multiplayer coding environment, today announced significant business momentum including venture-backed funding, scaled user acquisition and recruitment of key technical hires. The company is making programming more accessible, with powerful yet simple tools for anyone who wants to code and participate in the digital economy. Its accelerated growth over the past 12 months has been fueled by:
- Series A Funding: The company closed a $20 million investment in early 2020, bringing its total funding to date to $26 million. The Series A was led by A.Capital Ventures with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and seed investors Y Combinator, Reach Capital, and Bloomberg Beta. Notable angel investors include Paul Buchheit, Gmail Founder, and Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combinator. Over the past 12 months, the capital has enabled increased R&D, hiring, and platform enhancement rollouts.
- Six Million Users: Replit’s integrated development environment is free, easy to learn, and doesn’t require any set-up. Users spanning students, hobbyists and professional developers can simply go to their browser and start coding - on any platform, OS, or device. In January 2021, the platform’s user base surged to nearly 122% compared with the prior year, reaching more than 6 million registered users who made 9 million hosted apps.
- Unique Team Expansion: Replit’s employee base doubled in 2020, gaining top software engineering and technical talent from Google, Facebook, and Spotify. The team additions include a Google staff software engineer that worked on the Google Chromebook Apps founding team, one of the core developers of the Spotify recommendation engine, and a designer with a Harvard master’s degree in education. Demonstrating Replit’s vision that anyone can code, the company hired a 15-year-old coding prodigy in Texas, who learned how to code on Replit and started part-time as an intern. He developed an audio support feature for the platform and signed up for full-time employment this Fall when his high school shifted to remote learning. His work schedule is flexible around his schooling so he can focus on his craft while completing his education.
“Coding should be fun, not feel like work, and everyone should have the opportunity to tinker, explore and express themselves with software. We developed Replit to open that opportunity to all, forming an accessible, inclusive community where you can go to learn as well as create,” said Amjad Masad, founder and CEO of Replit. “Today, the platform is where millions of apps are developed, from teenagers building bots for Discord for a better gaming experience, to seasoned professional developers building startups backed by Y Combinator.”
According to a report from Burning Glass Technologies, in 2015 more than 7 million jobs required coding skills. These technical jobs paid more and were growing at a pace 50% higher than the rest of the job market. In March 2020, Indeed, a job posting website, reported that coding skills are required for all of the Top 10 most in demand tech jobs, ranked by salary.
Lowering the Entry-Point for Coding
To date, more than 9 million apps have been created on the platform. Replit is free for users, eliminating cost barriers many classes or online academies incur. It works with over 50 programming languages including Python, C++, HTML, and CSS. A coder can switch between languages and stay on a single platform. The environment also integrates with GitHub to import, run and collaborate with repos, without a need for additional set-up. No previous coding experience or skills are required; the environment offers learning resources and “how tos” for new coders. With Replit, users can host and deploy, instantly sharing and collaborating with other coders in the community. The environment embraces coders of all ages, with nearly 70% of Replit’s 6 million users under 21 years old.
"The creator economy is growing quickly and Replit enables anyone to create, build and own their own technology through its platform - whether a first-time coder or an experienced developer working to learn a new language," said Andrew Chen, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "Replit's approachable, easy-to-use tools coupled with tailwinds from remote school and work adoption has made this a boon for the creator ecosystem."
Pandemic Spurs Multiplayer Coding & Mobile Access
Demand for new ways to access the coding environment spiked during the pandemic. As many people were indoors and online, an increased interest in learning to code emerged. Additionally, educators and students were forced to explore alternative learning and building environments without access to school computer labs and equipment. Replit popularized the concept of “multiplayer coding,” which allows people to collaborate on code similar to how people collaborate on a Google Doc. Educators are reporting improved student outcomes from group projects and multiplayer learning.
In April 2020, Replit responded to the needs of students that were learning at home on phones and tablets, without access to desktop computers, and released an update to improve its mobile experience. The environment saw a 900% increase in usage on mobile devices. Chromebooks, widely issued by schools for remote learning, can’t run software so Replit users organically started leveraging the platform to turn their Chromebooks into PCs. In a matter of weeks, Replit provided universal basic computing, engaged millions of students and inspired creativity.
About Replit
Founded in 2016 by Jordanian programmer Amjad Masad and designer Haya Odeh, Replit is a globally distributed company building the first-ever fully online multiplayer computing environment. Replit empowers users to get started coding, without any setup required. With Replit, users can write code and build apps and websites through a browser, on any operating system and any device. Coders can share projects, create workspaces for projects in popular programming languages and grant access to containers, in which the code is executed. It supports over 50 programming languages. For more information, visit: https://Replit/
