Typesafe (from their web site) sells a packaged version of their "stack" (similar to RHEL), plus support, plus what looks like a proprietary management tool (ConductR, which I think is pretty new). Also training and consulting.
If I understand it correctly they build on the JVM, so the "infrastructure work" Maciej mentions (building the actual JVM) has already been done before they come into play.
Yes, but it also funds Odersky's work on Scala and Akka.
They building infrastructure (lang, community, lib ecosystem, stack) on top of another infrastructure. I think that's ok.
I feel that a good infrastructure by itself is hard to sell, but easy accessibility of the infrastructure and stuff built around it (for example the play framework in case of Typesafe) could be a good sell.
Some of that is state money right? How much of it is VC?
From what I understand, it's all private, raised from Shasta Ventures, Greylock Partners, Juniper Networks and Francois Stieger.