Taylor announced this morning on Twitter that Laravel has raised $57 million in a Series A round in collaboration with Accel. He expressed his belief that Laravel is the most efficient tool for building full-stack web applications and mentioned that Laravel Cloud will be the platform the community deserves for deploying those applications.
Laravel has begun assembling a top-tier engineering and leadership team. This has led to the development of Laravel Cloud, which was showcased at Laracon. Additionally, another product will be revealed at Laracon AU in November.
Taylor and Aaron Francis hosted a live Q&A following the announcement video, where they addressed several key questions.
Where is the funding going?
The money will be used to expand the team and build Laravel Cloud. They’re also hiring developers to work on the open-source side, ensuring Laravel continues to improve.
Was funding necessary due to struggles?
No, Laravel was already profitable and growing. However, Taylor felt that the company had reached its limits under the previous structure and wanted to pursue bigger goals.
What is Laravel Cloud?
Laravel Cloud is designed to make deployment easy for everyone, with a free sandbox tier and affordable pricing at 1 cent per hour for compute and 4 cents for the database. If an app isn’t getting traffic, it goes into hibernation, meaning no charges. Laravel Cloud offers a fully managed, serverful environment that mirrors the traditional PHP experience.
Are Forge or Vapor being discontinued?
No, both products remain part of Laravel’s roadmap, with updates expected early next year.
What about GDPR, SOC2, and compliance?
They are actively working on these and plan to have them in place for Laravel Cloud.
Will Laravel Cloud have spending limits?
Yes, users will be able to set spending limits and control how much their app can scale before hitting its cap.
Laravel Cloud API?
Yes, Laravel Cloud will have an API.
Why was the announcement made today?
They wanted to wait until they had substantial progress to show, demonstrating how the funding is being used to grow the community and platform.
When are upcoming products being released?
- Inertia 2 is expected next month.
- A free VS Code extension will launch in early November.
- Laravel Cloud will debut at the start of next year.
A new product at Laracon AU?
It will focus on monitoring but won’t require Laravel Cloud to use.
Will Laravel’s release cycle change?
No, the major release will continue to occur in Q1, with minor releases happening weekly.
Will Laravel’s paid products be affected?
There are no immediate plans to change any paid products.
What influence will Accel have?
Taylor and Accel are aligned in their vision for Laravel. Accel is there to support the development of world-class products, not to alter the framework’s direction.
What does this mean for PHP?
It demonstrates that PHP is a mature, productive ecosystem with strong backing, and Laravel aims to help it grow further.
Can Laravel buy PHP?
No, but Laravel wants to help PHP grow through marketing and other initiatives.
Laravel Herd for Linux?
Not a priority right now, but it hasn’t been ruled out.
Should the community worry about the funding?
Taylor reassured that Laravel remains his life’s work and greatest professional achievement. He is more committed than ever to making it successful.