Repl.it is a startup I’ve never heard of but it really seems I should have. They just raised $4.5M to build out a “microcomputer to the cloud’s mainframe.” What is that even? When they started they didn’t know either…

We started Repl.it as a side project with the straightforward goal of making it easy to get a REPL for your favorite language when you need one … however, our users wanted more. They misused our system for things it wasn’t meant for: they hacked games into our dumb web terminal, they made networked applications despite not having explicit support for it, and they kept asking for more.

It’s crazy how big ideas start so small and simple. Now they have the backing of one of the most sought after venture capital firms to continue on their quest. The seed round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Marc Andreessen and Andrew Chen championing the deal.

Cloud-computing is one of the most significant paradigm shifts in our industry, yet it remains command-able only by relatively few professionals. It’s similar to when, prior to microcomputers, only big corporations and universities had mainframes. We want Repl.it to be the microcomputer to the cloud’s mainframe.