npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round To Support Node.js Developers

Relatively easy to learn and highly scalable, Node.js has become a very popular platform for developing apps. Now npm, a package manager that installs, publishes, and manages node programs, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding, led by True Ventures, with additional participation by GoInstant.com co-founders Jevon MacDonald and Gavin Uhma, Charles Beeler, and Asynch Media, the organizers of Node Summit. True Ventures partner Puneet Agarwal will join npm’s board.

npm currently gives developers access to over 58,000 modules. Modules and packages are used by Node.js developers to quickly add new functionality to their apps, therefore saving themselves a lot of time.

Since its formation, the npm registry has grown very rapidly. As of the end of 2013, developers were using npm to download 134 million packages a month. Node.js packages now include more than one billion lines of code. The total lines of c++ and JS code, including tests, is 123,055.

Because of high demand, npm’s co-founders decided to form a company, called npm, Inc., to better support Node.js developers. The seed funding will allow npm to improve and scale up its services.

The npm registry was launched three years ago by CEO Isaac Schlueter, formerly of Yahoo. He is joined by co-founders Laurie Voss, CTO of npm, Inc., and COO Rod Boothby.

Built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime, Node.js is used by companies including GE, Walmart, Yahoo, Microsoft, LinkedIn, PayPal, and Joyent.

Joyent in particular has been one of the biggest advocates of Node.js and offers commercial support services like debugging and performance analysis tools for Node.js apps. Joyent co-founder Jason Hoffman, who retired from his position as the cloud computing pioneer’s CTO last fall, is also on npm’s board.

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