Open-source developer platform startup Gitpod GmbH said today it has raised $13 million in funding and made several updates to its platform that are aimed at accelerating software development in the cloud.

The round, led by General Catalyst, will be used to help Gitpod expand its position in the emerging developer environment automation business while growing its open-source community and ecosystem partnerships, the company said.

Gitpod, which launched back in 2018, provides an online integrated development environment that can be launched within a web browser from any GitHub page, enabling developers to start coding in seconds. Gitpod provides a fully working development environment that includes a VVS code-powered IDE and a cloud-based Linux container that’s automatically configured for the specific project that’s being updated.

The company says on its website that Gitpod is designed to remove the friction of manually setting up and maintaining a development environment. It means that developers can get to work faster, with all the tools they need to update or create new applications more quickly.

The convenience Gitpod provides has proved to be popular, with more than 350,000 developers across the world now using its platform.

General Catalyst Managing Director Steve Herrod said developers often struggle with increasingly larger codebases and more complex dependencies that can quickly lead to a cluttered development environment that hampers their productivity and collaboration. He said that he has been impressed with Gitpod because it “removes that friction and is on track to establish an essential new product category in modern software development.”

RedMonk co-founder and analyst Stephen O’Grady said in an October blog post that the developer experience gap is growing concern.

“While developers have a wealth of tools at their fingertips, integrating them all together and operating that patchwork quilt of technologies is a major gap in the developer experience,” O’Grady said. “One important tool in addressing the problem is automation, which can lower the burden on developers to maintain these complicated pipelines. Gitpod’s embrace of automated, higher quality developer experiences, therefore, is one to watch.”

Alongside the funding, Gitpod announced three updates its platform. They include support for VS Code in Gitpod, which gives developers access to the most popular code editing tool. Meanwhile, the addition of sudo privileges and Docker support makes it possible to build Docker images and run containers from within the developer workspace. Finally, Gitpod has redesigned its dashboard in a way that it says should help to speed up workflows.

Later this month, Gitpod said it will host its first virtual developer conference. The DevXConf will take place April 28-29, with confirmed keynote speakers including VMware Inc.’s spring developer advocate Josh Long and Codesee Inc. founder Shanea Leven, the company said.

“At DevXConf some of the brightest minds from the community will get together and have a conversation on how we can make software engineering more productive and fun,” said Gitpod Chief Executive Sven Efftinge.

Image: Gitpod