Free online JavaScript tutorial becomes a hit

An increasingly popular website that teaches JavaScript programming for free is about to scale up with a new $2.5 million investment round.

Codecademy teaches coding from the very basics, using conversational language and simple tasks in order to not daunt new users. Users get their own progress bars and are constantly rewarded, and can also measure their progress against friends.

The popular website is the brainchild of Ryan Bubinski and Zach Sims, the two founders of the company who were “tired with less effective text and video resources” for programming. The website drew in more than 250,000 visitors in its first four days.

Now a new $2.5 million funding round, led by Union Square Ventures, has allowed Codecademy to expand its operations to more countries with more manpower.