Firebase (YC S11) Raises $1.1M For Real-Time App Infrastructure | Hacker News Reader

Firebase (YC S11) Raises $1.1M For Real-Time App Infrastructure

techcrunch.com

83 pointsmayop10026 comments

My initial thoughts were that Meteor would be more widely deployed in production than Firebase would. But it also seemed like Firebase had a more obvious path to profitability than Meteor.

Given the current VC market and the rapidly evolving landscape of (so called) real-time services, I'm surprised they raised such a small sum. I would have thought if you were going to go the VC route, you might as well go all in and raise a massive chunk.

With a (somewhat conservative) estimate of $10K a month per engineer and $1.1M to spend, a team of 8 engineers would give you a runway of just under 14 months. I think you would want more runway than that.

$10K is not a conservative estimate for fully-loaded costs of engineers in the Valley right now. Budget $15k ~ $20k.

Yes, it is. What do you think a "conservative estimate" means? Here are two definitions for you: "moderate, cautious, low"[1]; "at the lower end of a range of possible numbers"[2].

1. http://www.answers.com/topic/conservative

2. http://www.definitions.net/definition/conservative

Arguably if you're talking about spending money then a conservative (i.e. cautious or moderate) estimate is a high estimate.

I was assuming the value being optimized for was runway, so a conservative estimate overshoots on probable fully-loaded cost which results in underestimating how long you have until you die. Overestimating how long until you die has more serious consequences from the perspective of, well, everyone involved.

I think there's a good lesson for startups building platforms: don't underestimate the importance of hustle.

I met James and his team at a hackathon this past March. Twilio (the company I work for) was a sponsor, along with Firebase and several other API companies. I had never heard of Firebase, and I don't think any of the ~100 developers there had either.

James and his team (~6 of so colleagues & friends) spent that weekend talking to every team there, understanding what they were trying to do and diving into their code. They were everywhere, buying beer, lending a helping hand, you name it.

3 months later, they raise a million dollars. Not a coincidence.

We're using this to power Roll20[1]. The whole team has been very responsive and supportive of any and all questions. Congrats!

[1] http://roll20.net

Was a backer of Roll20. I love you guys. Excellent platform. Haven't had a good chance to really put it to use, but I love everything about it.

Thanks so much for the kind words!

Thanks Riley!

Congrats to them, they deserve it for a great product.

I've ran through the demos and have been waiting my invite to set in for a while now.

Are you working on a way to develop and delpoy apps on your platform without shipping the entire source code to the app to the browser? I'm guessing there are a lot of people who don't mind their source code being sent to each user, but I think there are many of us who would love to use your platform that would prefer not to do that.

Congrats on the funding!

Congratulations, guys. Will be very interesting to see the next version with security and pricing. Any more details yet?

Still working! Security is our #1 priority right now.

Firebase has been all the hype lately. A fantastic seed round - congrats!

How does Firebase compare to Meteor?

Great news!

Btw, how does this affect Envolve? Is Envolve going to continue running?

Fantastic interactive demo you guys have - very intuitive.

Does anyone know what this puts their valuation at?

It doesn't, valuation has little to do with amount raised.

That's nonsensical.

If you raise 1.1m, and the investors get 10% stake, then your valuation is 11m.

No, it's not nonsensical (aside: not a particularly polite way to disagree). It's not entirely clear that this is a priced round. Even if it was, Jamie is right-- they could have raised that money selling anywhere from 10% to 50% of their company.

It's not that simple.

Could have been a convertible loan, which defers setting a valuation.

Awesome guys, can't wait for what comes next!

Congrats James and team!

are you guys still running on mongodb? any plans to migrate to riak?

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