TechStars Cloud 2013 incubator participant Drifty has secured $1 million in its seed financing round, TechCrunch reported.

Arthur Ventures funded the startup that makes a host of tools that help mobile developers come up with apps and websites. The most remarkable creation of Drifty is the Ionic framework which was launched last year. The Ionic platform allows developers to create rich and interactive apps using HTML, CSS and AngularJS through its open source HTML5 mobile app framework, the report said.

Proceeds from the latest round will be used towards getting more people on board the team. It currently has a workforce of nine but the startup intends to double this number primarily by hiring developers. The proceeds will also be deployed for the continued improvement of the Ionic platform. Among the areas that the team intends to work on with the new funding are enhancing the gestures and animations and launching mobile services this year so that Ionic can become a feasible alternative to the creation of native apps. Drifty intends to concentrate on analytics, notifications and a testing service which would allow the firm to earn from the free service, the report said.

Drifty's founders have been friends since childhood, collaborating on different online projects since they were in high school. Ben Sperry, now CEO of Drifty and Max Lynch, company CTO, also worked with other startups focused on making mobile MMORPG games before they decided to test the waters on their own and form Drifty, the report said.

Sperry explained to TechCrunch that Ionic has similarities with Sencha Touch. However, the difference is in the way it is licensed. Sperry said, "It's completely, 100% open-sourced. It's MIT-licensed, which means anyone can use it, commercial or personal - it doesn't matter to us." Referring to Sencha's license, Sperry said, "We don't think that's the right way to offer a framework, which is why we made ours free."