Highlights:

  • Vercel monetizes Node.js through a suite of paid cloud services aimed at simplifying frontend development.
  • Vercel’s primary offering, the DX Platform, aims to streamline the process of deploying frontend code to production.

A startup that aids developers in quickly building web application frontends, Vercel Inc. has raised USD 250 million in new funding, bringing its valuation to USD 3.25 billion.

A leading media house recently reported that the Series E investment, led by Accel and joined by Alphabet Inc.’s GV startup fund, CRV, and several other investors, was made in Vercel. The company’s annual recurring revenue had reportedly surpassed USD 100 million shortly before the funding round.

San Francisco-based Vercel developed Next.js, a widely used open-source toolkit for website creation. This toolkit accelerates loading times by rendering visual assets in the cloud instead of on visitors’ devices. Next.js also enables the creation of website components with React, an open-source library from Meta Platforms Inc. that simplifies various coding tasks.

Vercel monetizes Node.js through a suite of paid cloud services aimed at simplifying frontend development, which involves creating website interface elements like buttons, menus, and checkout pages.

Vercel’s main product, the DX Platform, aims to streamline the deployment of frontend code to production. Typically, deploying website updates is a complex, multi-step process that companies automate using CI/CD pipelines. Vercel offers preconfigured CI/CD pipelines that require minimal setup and can accelerate code deployment by up to six times.

The platform also includes additional features. It allows software teams to create a staging environment, a replica of the website, for testing code changes before a full release. If faulty code reaches production, developers can use the DX Platform to revert the update quickly.

The service is provided alongside managed website hosting infrastructure. The company offers servers for running web applications and a suite of cloud databases for storing website information. Both the servers and databases can automatically scale to accommodate varying traffic levels.

Vercel plans to use the proceeds from its latest funding round to improve its cybersecurity features. As part of its managed infrastructure services, the company offers a tool designed to protect websites from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Additionally, it provides access controls that allow companies to manage how developers interact with their frontend code.

The leading media house reports that Vercel also intends to develop additional features for its v0 artificial intelligence service. This tool, a recent addition to the company’s product lineup, can automatically create website interfaces from natural language prompts. It is offered in a free version and two paid editions that include extra website development capabilities.