API gateway and service mesh business Solo.io raises $135M

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Application networking company Solo.io has raised $135 million in a series C round of funding, valuing the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company at more than $1 billion.

Application networking is concerned with the procedure of connecting application, information, and hardware by means of application programming interfaces (APIs). It’s closely linked to a contemporary application development ethos that is seeing monolithic applications make way for Kubernetes and a microservices-based architecture constructed on smaller sized, function-based elements that are much easier to retain and scale. In turn, this is powering the burgeoning API economy.

Founded in 2017, Solo.io operates in two broad markets connected to application networks. The 1st is API gateways, which are integral tools for bridging cloud apps and services, serving as a unified interface for managing API requests and channeling them to the right location. Notable players in the space consist of Google-owned Apigee, Salesforce-owned Mulesoft, and heavily VC-backed Kong, although there are numerous other incumbents from big tech corporations such as Amazon to open supply contenders like KrakenD.

Solo.io’s focus, especially, is on enabling enterprises to serve an API gateway for all their internally-created applications, as opposed to connecting applications from independent application vendors (ISV) such as Salesforce or SAP.

The second broad focus region for Solo.io is service mesh, which is an infrastructure layer that enables two-way communications amongst services or microservices in internally-created enterprise applications.

“Our focus is on enabling enterprises to provide an API Gateway for their internally developed applications and also a service mesh that manages the communications between services,” Solo.io CMO Erik Frieberg told VentureBeat. “As you can imagine, virtually every company is building new applications or building extensions to applications, so they need an API gateway and a service mesh.”

Product focus

Solo.io’s mesh solution is named Gloo Mesh, which is constructed on the Istio project that Google, IBM, and Lyft open-sourced back in 2017. Gloo Mesh is also offered as an open supply project, whilst Solo.io also launched an enterprise-grade version earlier this year. The Gloo Edge API gateway, meanwhile, is constructed on the open supply Envoy project, which was initially created at Lyft. This also is also offered as a standalone open supply project, separate to Envoy. And ultimately there is Gloo Extensions, which assists corporations extend and customize their API infrastructure.

So how does all this look as portion of a company’s broader technologies stack? Well, Solo.io occupies the middle to upper portions of the OSI model‘s seven layers, according to Frieberg. This sees corporations such as Cisco sit at the bottom of the pyramid giving the physical layer for moving information. The model then moves on up by means of layer 2. (information hyperlink layer), 3. (network layer), 4. (transport layer), 5. (session layer), 6. (presentation layer), and 7. (application layer). Solo.io lives roughly in the middle of this structure, managing the communications amongst applications (the API gateway) and inside applications (the service mesh).

“Companies need to connect, manage, and secure application traffic between their applications and within the microservices that make up their apps — and they want to do it with a modern approach and leverage open source, de-facto industry standard technologies like Kubernetes, Istio and Envoy,” Frieberg explained.  “Solo helps you simplify your application networking with unified control, reliability, observability, extensibility, and security.”

Solo.io has amassed a relatively impressive roster of clients in its 4 year history, which includes SAP, Snyk, BMW, and T-Mobile, whilst it has raised about $36.5 million in venture capital funding. With an additional $135 million in the bank, the business is effectively-financed to double down on its “domestic and international go-to-market strategy,” which will consist of recruiting across departments and investing in solution development and R&ampD.

The company’s series C backers consist of lead investors Altimeter Capital Management and Lead Edge Capital, with participation from Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz