Nix environment management startup FloxDev Inc. said today it has raised $16.5 million in new funding and has launched its new open-source flox platform to expand on Nix’s unique approach to package management and system configuration.

Nix is a cross-platform package manager that employs a functional deployment model where software is installed in unique directories. The new flox open-source platform provides convenience, collaboration and control throughout the systems development life cycle, according to the company. It does so by adding new capabilities to Nix, such as portable, fully isolated development, test and production environments, a tailored catalog of software packages, and tooling for managing the entire cycle.

Flox argues that the way software is built is changing, with larger code bases, complex software dependencies, cloud-native technologies and security breaches forcing organizations to re-evaluate how they develop and deploy software. As a consequence, companies are starting to move beyond containers to tools and platforms that can improve their build and development process, increase efficiency and deliver higher quality code, reproducibility and visibility into their stack — in any environment.

The platform enables organizations to adopt and implement Nix by providing developer, test and production environments defined and managed as code. With flox, users can easily share environments and packages across teams, machines, individuals and organizations while integrating into existing workflows.

For security and compliance, flox provides complete visibility into the software bill of materials for applications used in production environments, providing visibility into the software stack and enabling real-time vulnerability management and detection without scanning.

“We created flox to give developers better collaboration and control over their development lifecycle, including improved automation over production releases, reduced operational risk and increased productivity,” Ron Efroni, co-founder and chief executive of flox, said in a statement. “We recognized the vast power of Nix but knew there was a market need to take developer tools to the next level, providing versioned environments-as-code that could be consistently released, updated and maintained and that could offer improved security and efficiency.”

New Enterprise Associates led the Series A round, bringing the total amount flox has raised in venture capital funding to $27 million. Previous investors include Hetz Ventures and Aaron Applbaum.

Photo: flox