The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

We’re truly excited to share that Scala has received an investment from the Sovereign Tech Fund to strengthen Scala’s long-term security, maintenance, and developer experience.

The work is coordinated by the Scala Center and runs for two years, with a total investment of €377,300.

The Sovereign Tech Fund is a program of the Sovereign Tech Agency that globally invests in open software components that build our core digital infrastructure.

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The Sovereign Tech Agency and the Sovereign Tech Fund

The Sovereign Tech Agency is the first publicly funded organization in Europe that supports the development, improvement, and maintenance of open digital infrastructures. It is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation and is a subsidiary of SPRIND, the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation.

The Sovereign Tech Agency’s mission is to strengthen the open source ecosystem sustainably, focusing on resilience, technological diversity, and the people behind the code as foundations for a future-ready economy and modern society.

The Sovereign Tech Fund identifies and invests in open source software components that enable the creation of software, and supports key technologies with broad societal importance. Since October 2022, the Sovereign Tech Fund has invested a total of around €34 million in 95 critical technology projects.

Scala is critical digital infrastructure

Scala is widely used to build and operate essential systems across multiple industries. These systems include data pipelines and distributed applications, and some are in highly regulated environments like finance and public services. In these contexts, reliability is paramount. The safety, sustainability, and evolution of the Scala language and its tooling directly impact systems that people and institutions rely on every day.

This is why, in 2016, the Scala Center was founded with a clear mission: to make the Scala open-source ecosystem stronger, more resilient, and sustainable over the long term. Thanks to the continued support of Scala Center industry partners (through the Advisory Board program), EPFL, and the worldwide Scala contributor community, the ecosystem continues to grow stronger every day.

And today, with the Sovereign Tech Fund’s investment in Scala, this commitment is reinforced at a public-infrastructure level. We are very thankful that the Fund’s support recognizes Scala as critical digital infrastructure and enables sustained, focused work on the language’s core foundations over the coming years.

A closer look: what this investment will deliver

1) Security Audit

A dedicated security audit by Open Source Technology Improvement Fund (OSTIF) will uncover vulnerabilities and strengthen confidence in Scala’s core components. This supports not only Scala users, but also the broader environments where Scala runs, for example as a component of complex software supply chains. We are super thankful to the OSTIF team and support!

2) Improvement of scoverage

scoverage is a key tool in the Scala ecosystem for measuring code coverage. Improving it increases the reliability of Scala codebases and helps teams detect gaps in testing earlier, especially as systems evolve.

3) Maintenance of the Standard Library / Core Library Modules and APIs

Long-term maintenance of core libraries and APIs is critical for stability. This includes keeping foundational modules healthy, reducing technical debt, and ensuring compatibility across versions.

4) Modernization and extension of the Standard Library / Core Library Modules and API Documentation

As Scala continues to evolve, modernizing and extending core modules ensures the language remains productive and relevant, while also supporting gradual adoption and stable upgrade paths. The work also brings improvements to API documentation and Scala websites, to improve understanding.

5) Build tool major update: sbt 2.0

Build tools are the backbone of developer productivity. The major update to sbt 2.0 will make Scala projects easier to build, maintain, and understand. This will be impactful for new users and contributors, as well as for established projects. Among other improvements, sbt 2 adopts Scala 3 (in place of 2.12) as the language for build definitions.

The Scala Center’s role

The Scala Center has been entrusted with coordinating the commissioned work, check out the team working on the projects.

We are very thankful that this support recognizes Scala’s importance in the broader digital landscape, and for investing in foundational work that strengthens the reliability of the systems and services built on Scala across the public sector and industries.

Stay informed and get involved

We’ll share updates as work progresses, including milestones, delivered improvements, and opportunities to engage with the effort.

Scala is critical digital infrastructure, so keeping it healthy is a shared responsibility. If you’re using Scala in production, maintaining libraries, or contributing to tooling and documentation, your feedback and involvement help keep Scala strong.

In addition to occasional blog posts such as this one, we’ll also post more detailed updates, progress reports, and calls for feedback on our Discourse-based contributors forum at contributors.scala-lang.org. Please follow the relevant threads to stay informed.