Sonatype, the leader in component lifecycle management, today announced it has secured $25 million in financing led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing investors Accel Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures and Bay Partners. The company will invest in product development and the global marketing of its revolutionary component lifecycle management technologies, intelligent tools and information services.

The software development landscape has shifted from custom-written, code-based applications to agile, component-based assemblies. The result is a more rapid, collaborative and cost-effective development process. However, the efficiency and performance gains brought by agile-development processes and the widespread use of externally sourced, open-source components have also introduced new risks and requirements for the modern software-development organization. Sonatype is at the forefront of this component-based software movement with intelligent tools and information services to accelerate the benefits of open source while eliminating security, quality and licensing risks.

"Sonatype embodies what we look for in our portfolio companies -- bold vision, innovative products and the power to change an industry," said Harry Weller, general partner at NEA and new Sonatype board member. "New demands for increased flexibility and improved time-to-value have reshaped the way software is developed and delivered with agile, open source, component-based development emerging as the new standard. Sonatype's deep history in the open-source software community, developer-friendly approach to component lifecycle management and skyrocketing demand for open-source components in the Central Repository, puts the company in a prime position to become the must-have tool used by every development organization in the world."

As the operators of the Central Repository -- the software industry's primary source for open-source components, housing more than 400,000 components and serving more than five billion requests per year -- Sonatype has developed a unique set of offerings to help organizations more effectively leverage component-based software development. The company has built a sophisticated infrastructure for mining virtually everything knowable about a given software component and delivering practical intelligence directly into the tools that developers use every day.

"Forward-thinking organizations that have embraced agile development also want to establish control and visibility across an increasingly complex software supply chain," said Wayne Jackson, CEO of Sonatype. "Legacy tools were designed for a different era, when software was written, not assembled. Our approach is different -- we provide real-time, actionable component information developers need, when they need it. We have created a truly unique infrastructure that bridges critical awareness gaps, enabling organizations to avoid risk, improve collaboration and build better software faster."


About Sonatype Sonatype is leading the component revolution. The company's innovative component lifecycle management products enable organizations to realize the promise of agile, component-based software development while avoiding security, quality and licensing risks. Sonatype operates the Central Repository, the industry's primary source for open-source components, housing more than 400,000 components and serving more than five billion requests per year from more than 60,000 organizations. The company has been a pioneer in component-based software development since its founding by Jason van Zyl, the creator of the Apache Maven build management system and the Central Repository. Since that time, Sonatype has been a leader in core open-source software development ecosystem projects used by more than nine million developers including Nexus, m2eclipse, and Hudson. Sonatype is privately held with investments from New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, Bay Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Morgenthaler Ventures.