With Laravel hiring a bunch of new team members and seeing the Laravel copyright change to "Laravel Holdings Inc." I half expected Taylor to announce that he'd taken outside investment.

I wouldn't fault him if he did, but I kinda hope that Laravel remains bootstrapped/independent.

I'm pretty sure they did take outside money, not sure in which form - loan, investment, etc.

Laravel products are big but I don't think they are THAT big to pay good salaries to 30+ people.

But Taylor doesn't have to disclose it, really. Business decisions are not for public. Same partnership with Sentry: we don't know the details.

However, I think Taylor negotiated all the partnerships in a way that he stays the decision maker.