SiliconBeat – GitHub raises $250 million as investors acknowledge importance of open-source software

"GitHub, the hub for open-sourced software and code-sharing, has raised $250 million from investors — among the larger Silicon Valley investments so far this year. The San Francisco-based company confirmed on Wednesday it closed a $250 million Series B, led by premiere VC firm Sequoia Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital and Institutional Venture Partners. The round brings GitHub’s total fundraising to $350 million; it hadn’t raised capital since 2012, when it pulled in $100 million from Andreessen Horowitz, the company said. It had bootstrapped itself for four years prior. GitHub declined to comment on its valuation, but the Wall Street Journal pegs it at $2 billion, citing sources familiar with the matter. That would put GitHub’s market cap in line with that of Instacart and Blue Apron, popular grocery-delivery services. But its valuation is as much as GitHub has in common with those companies, or any other consumer-facing app. GitHub  is a central repository for open-source software, where programmers can alter and distribute computer code freely. GitHub tracks every change and update a developer has made to a line of code, and offers myriad collaboration tools for developers. The idea is that a community of developers working together is better than a single developer working in an isolated environment. Developers can submit projects and ask for feedback, which is how a lot of bugs on highly trafficked websites and apps get fixed. Founded in 2008, GitHub says it has more than 33 million unique visitors and is one of the top 100 most-visited websites in the world ..."