Warp has formally released its fast and modern command-line terminal “so entire development teams can be more productive building, running, and debugging code.” Tens of thousands of developers have signed up for the private beta waiting list since last summer, and thousands of developers use the app daily. The product is in public beta starting today.
“It’s crazy that one of the top two apps that all developers use on a daily basis doesn’t support any of the contemporary user interface and collaboration features that have become standard across productivity software in the last 10 years.” . On the same computers that run Figma and Google Docs, developers are still using terminals familiar from ’80s hacker movies for many of their core workflows. Warp modernizes the terminal, making it collaborative and team-friendly, bringing it into the 21st century,” said Zach Lloyd, Warp Founder and CEO.
Developers use the terminal to write, build, run, debug, and distribute software, including most of the software that powers the cloud. However, the terminal has not been significantly improved in the last 40 years. As a result, developers waste countless hours trying to learn, use, and collaborate on an archaic tool that they could otherwise spend building and distributing software.
Warp founder and CEO Zach Lloyd set out to modernize the terminal, allowing every developer to be as productive as a command line expert. He leveraged his experience as an engineering lead at Google Docs, which fueled a similar transformation in office productivity software. Together with a team of productivity software veterans, including Shikhiu Ing, who led the Google Docs design team, Warp has reinvented the terminal, connected it to the cloud, and put it at the service of teams.
“Warp is a super fast app, built natively in Rust, with an interface tailor-made for contemporary workflows. Warp changes the basic elements of the terminal interface – text input and output – to fit the way developers work nowadays. The input works like a modern text editor, and the output works like a data notebook. Additionally, Warp works from the ground up to make terminal input nice and powerful, suggesting commands for commonly used tools and providing built-in workflows to save developers time.
Moreover to designing for the individual developer, Warp also accommodates the fundamentally collaborative nature of modern development teams. While the normal terminal is a single-player app, Warp introduces features that allow developers to help each other, debug bugs together, and share knowledge.
Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, who is working on a new startup, said: “I’ve been using Warp every day at work. What I like the most is the speed: both in terms of how fast it works and how fast it feels to use, especially the excellent typehead and search. Warp brings terminals nowadays and I can’t wait to see how far they go with Warp.”
Warp raises $23 million in seed and series A funding
Warp has raised $6 million in a seed round led by GV with participation from Neo and BoxGroup and a $17 million Series A round led by Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma. Other participants include Elad Gil, Silicon Valley’s biggest solo venture capitalist, Jeff Weiner’s Next Play Ventures, and Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures.
“Warp is making a terminal 10 times better and multiplayer, and the opportunity is huge,” said Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma. “Like design, we will never look back.”
“There are few tools as widely used by developers as the terminal, and there is a need for dramatic improvement. Warp takes an innovative approach to rebuilding the CLI with a contemporary, collaborative UX that resonates with distributed development teams,” said Erik Nordlander, General Partner at GV and Warp Board Member. “GV is excited to support Zach Lloyd and the team at Warp as they reinvent one of the most important tools for developers.”
“We are delighted to once again partner with such a brilliant entrepreneur, Zach Lloyd,” said Marc Benioff. “Developers will benefit greatly from the awesomeness of Warp.dev.”
Warp plans to use the money to grow its engineering team and continue to advance its product as it comes to market in 2022.
