Netlify

On May 20, 2013, Mathias Biilmann made the first commit to a repository called bitballoon, and over roughly three months he and one collaborator built BitBalloon, a hosting service for uploading static sites with form handling; that repository later became the API that runs Netlify in production.⁠[1]

On August 27, 2013, Biilmann launched BitBalloon with a Hacker News post titled “Show HN: BitBalloon, insta-deployment of static sites with forms that just work.”⁠[1]

Netlify was founded in 2014. BitBalloon convinced Biilmann and his friend Chris Bach that standalone frontend hosting was bigger than a side project, and the two founded Netlify around git: connect a repository, and the master branch becomes the website.⁠[2][1]

Netlify launched out of private beta in March 2015. BitBalloon was neither renamed nor acquired and kept running beside Netlify for three years as a simple drag-and-drop product; in November 2015 Bach introduced Netlify on BitBalloon’s blog in a post titled “Netlify, a pro-version of BitBalloon.”⁠[1]

In 2015 Netlify bet the company on a web architecture that eliminates the need for web servers; its founders named it “JAMstack,” a web development architecture based on client-side JavaScript, reusable APIs and prebuilt Markup.⁠[3][4]

In 2016 Netlify introduced Deploy Previews, in which a frontend pull request in a user’s Git repository automatically generates a live preview of the site with a unique shareable URL.⁠[5]

On August 9, 2017, Netlify announced a $12 million Series A from Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, with existing investors Bloomberg Beta, Designer Fund and Tank Hill Ventures participating; Peter Levine of Andreessen Horowitz joined the board.⁠[6]

The announcement was signed by co-founder and CEO Mathias Biilmann and co-founder and Chief Strategy and Creative Officer Chris Bach. It said more than 100,000 developers were on Netlify and thousands of open-source projects such as Yarn, Lodash, Kubernetes and Docker used it, and that the funding would go to open-source projects including Netlify CMS, GoTrue and GoCommerce as well as collaboration tools and infrastructure.⁠[6]

In 2018 Netlify added serverless functions to its platform, letting developers deploy frontend code and backend functions together from a single repository with a single workflow.⁠[7]

That summer Netlify folded BitBalloon into a new drag-and-drop feature, Netlify Drop; on August 14, 2018, Phil Hawksworth announced Netlify Drop as “the natural evolution of BitBalloon.”⁠[1]

On October 9, 2018, Netlify announced a $30 million Series B led by Mamoon Hamid of Kleiner Perkins, with Andreessen Horowitz and the founders of Slack, Yelp, GitHub and Figma participating. The company described its product as a global “Application Delivery Network,” on which content and applications are built and distributed directly across a global network without setting up servers.⁠[4]

In the announcement Biilmann said: “We’re not trying to make managing infrastructure easy. We want to make it totally unnecessary.”⁠[4]

On March 4, 2020, Netlify announced a $53 million Series C led by EQTEQTEQT is a global private markets investment manager that originated in Sweden, with businesses spanning private capital, infrastructure, real estate, and secondaries. It was founded in 1994 by Conni Jonsson with the support of Investor AB, AEA Investors, and SEB, and listed in Stockholm in 2019; it has since expanded by integrating Exeter, LSP, Baring Private Equity Asia, and Coller Capital.Open the full entry Ventures, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins and Preston-Werner Ventures participating, bringing total funding to $97 million. The announcement said 800,000 developers and businesses used Netlify and that the company had tripled its customer base and revenue year over year.⁠[3]

EQT Ventures said its proprietary artificial intelligence platform Motherbrain had flagged Netlify as an investment opportunity; EQT Ventures deal partner Laura Yao joined Netlify’s board with the round.⁠[3]

On May 19, 2021, Netlify announced its acquisition of FeaturePeek and used its technology to launch a collaborative next generation of Deploy Previews, letting reviewers comment, annotate screenshots and record videos directly on a preview, with feedback synced to the Git pull request or collaboration tool. FeaturePeek was founded in 2019 by Eric Silverman and Jason Barry, with investors including Y Combinator and Matrix PartnersMatrix PartnersMatrix Partners, now branded Matrix, is a US early-stage venture capital firm with roots in Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates, established in 1977. Matrix was founded in 1982 and invests in technology companies from the idea stage through Series A.Open the full entry, and its team joined Netlify.⁠[5]

On November 17, 2021, Netlify announced it had raised $105 million at a $2 billion valuation. Bessemer Venture Partners led the Series D, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, BOND, EQT Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Mango Capital and Menlo Ventures participating; total funding reached $212 million.⁠[8]

The same day Netlify announced the acquisition of GraphQL platform OneGraph and created the Netlify Jamstack Innovation Fund, with a goal of investing $10 million in early-stage Jamstack companies plus $1 million in open-source projects. The announcement said more than two million developers had used Netlify.⁠[8]

On the board, Mary D’Onofrio of Bessemer Venture Partners joined, Andreessen Horowitz general partner Martin CasadoMartin CasadoMartin Casado is a computer scientist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist who is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads infrastructure investing. A major proponent of software-defined networking, he co-founded Nicira and served as its chief technology officer, and after VMware acquired the company he ran its networking and security business; he also co-founded the nonprofit MuralNet.Open the full entry took over Peter Levine’s seat while Levine remained an advisor, product growth leader Elena Verna joined the board, and Ohad Eder-Pressman moved to an observer role.⁠[8]

On February 1, 2022, Netlify announced the acquisition of Quirrel, an open-source solution for managing and scheduling serverless functions and jobs; Quirrel founder and Blitz.js maintainer Simon Knott joined Netlify to build scheduling into the platform, and a beta of Scheduled Functions became available in Netlify Labs.⁠[7]

On February 1, 2023, Netlify announced it had acquired Gatsby Inc., creator of the open-source frontend framework Gatsby, together with its new Valhalla Content Hub platform; Netlify said the Gatsby framework would remain open source. The announcement said Netlify had surpassed three million developers.⁠[9]

On June 29, 2023, Netlify announced the acquisition of visual editing solution Stackbit, giving marketers, product managers and other non-developers the ability to create and edit website and app interfaces in real time from a browser. The announcement said Netlify had more than four million developers and over 475 enterprise customers.⁠[10]

On March 18, 2026, Netlify launched a way to start new projects from a prompt at netlify.new, using Agent Runners to choose a coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI to generate a web app and deploy it on Netlify, along with an Internal Builder seat for non-engineering teams inside enterprises. The company said more than 10 million developers and teams used Netlify.⁠[11]

At the launch, co-founder and CEO Matt Biilmann said: “Coding agents are becoming the new way people start software.”⁠[11]

Netlify: Official website: https://www.netlify.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/netlify (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/netlify (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NetlifyApp (opens in a new window).⁠[2]