StrongLoop, the company behind Node.js, has closed a $8 million Series A round led by investors Shasta Ventures and Ignition Partners. Along with the funding, StrongLoop announced that Issac Roth has joined as CEO. Roth is a former Red Hat executive and visionary behind Red Hat's OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service. He joins StrongLoop founders Ben Noordhuis and Bert Belder who are top contributors to Node.js. Jason Pressman of Shasta Ventures and Nick Sturiale from Ignition Partners have joined the StrongLoop board of Directors. The new financing will be used to expand engineering, product and marketing efforts.

Additionally, StrongLoop announced today the general availability of LoopBack(TM), an open source mobile backend-as-a-service (mBaaS) based on Node.js that can be deployed either in the datacenter or in the cloud. LoopBack was developed with the advice of leading web companies such as LinkedIn who built their mobile backends on Node.js.

'Node.js, not Java or Ruby, is the language to use when you want to connect mobile devices to many different types of data sources,' said Kiran Prasad, Sr. Director of Mobile Engineering at LinkedIn. 'Mobile developers who already know JavaScript can quickly implement Node. This means the same developer can code the front and backend of the application.'

JavaScript is the most commonly known programming language. Node.js allows JavaScript to be used on the server. Only four years old, Node.js has already been downloaded millions of times in 2013 and is one of the most popular projects on GitHub ahead of jQuery, HTML5 and Ruby on Rails. LoopBack is part of StrongLoop Suite, a complete solution for developing, deploying, scaling and managing Node.js.

'Just like websites in the 90's didn't do much until they were connected to data, mobile applications today scratch the surface of what will be possible when they become data rich. The value of the web was unlocked when application servers bridged the browser to enterprise data,' explained CEO Roth. 'In the same way, a Mobile API Tier is needed to connect corporate data sources and mobile applications. Node.js is incredibly popular, but what many don't realize is that Node.js has become the de-facto language of mobile backends -- as Java is to the web, Node.js is to mobile.'

'Customers, employees and partners are forcing enterprises to create mobile apps. To make it possible to do real work in the field, applications on tablets and phones need to be data rich -- unless you're a game vendor, Angry Birds just doesn't help to meet the quarterly number. This demand for mobile backend connectivity creates a huge opportunity for StrongLoop who have collected an amazing talent pool of Node.js experts. Node.js is taking off and StrongLoop is positioned to be a critical vendor,' said Nick Sturiale of Ignition Partners.

For more information, visit strongloop.com, try LoopBack or register for the webinar: 'Introducing LoopBack: an Open Source Mobile Backend-as-a-Service based on Node.js.'

About StrongLoop:

StrongLoop is based in San Mateo, CA and employs over 30 developers working on Node.js. The company is backed by Ignition Partners and Shasta Ventures and includes Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus (previously MySQL) as an advisor. StrongLoop develops StrongLoop Suite, a leading Mobile API Tier along with being the primary code contributor to Node.js. StrongLoop Suite adds to Node.js with an open source private mBaaS, certified modules, an operations console and cluster management capabilities.