API gateway and repair mesh firm Solo.io raises $135M

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Utility networking firm Solo.io has raised $135 million in a sequence C spherical of funding, valuing the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based enterprise at greater than $1 billion.

Utility networking is anxious with the method of connecting software program, knowledge, and {hardware} via utility programming interfaces (APIs). It’s intently linked to a contemporary software program growth ethos that’s seeing monolithic functions make means for Kubernetes and a microservices-based architecture constructed on smaller, function-based parts which can be simpler to take care of and scale. In flip, that is powering the burgeoning API economy.

Based in 2017, Solo.io operates in two broad markets associated to utility networks. The primary is API gateways, that are integral instruments for bridging cloud apps and companies, serving as a unified interface for managing API requests and channeling them to the right vacation spot. Notable gamers within the area embody Google-owned Apigee, Salesforce-owned Mulesoft, and closely VC-backed Kong, although there are numerous different incumbents from main tech corporations such as Amazon to open supply contenders like KrakenD.

Solo.io’s focus, particularly, is on enabling enterprises to serve an API gateway for all their internally-developed functions, versus connecting functions from unbiased software program distributors (ISV) akin to Salesforce or SAP.

The second broad focus space for Solo.io is service mesh, which is an infrastructure layer that allows two-way communications between companies or microservices in internally-developed enterprise functions.

“Our focus is on enabling enterprises to offer an API Gateway for his or her internally developed functions and likewise a service mesh that manages the communications between companies,” Solo.io CMO Erik Frieberg advised VentureBeat. “As you may think about, just about each firm is constructing new functions or constructing extensions to functions, so that they want an API gateway and a service mesh.”

Product focus

Solo.io’s mesh product is named Gloo Mesh, which is constructed on the Istio project that Google, IBM, and Lyft open-sourced back in 2017. Gloo Mesh can also be obtainable as an open source project, whereas Solo.io additionally launched an enterprise-grade version earlier this yr. The Gloo Edge API gateway, in the meantime, is constructed on the open source Envoy project, which was initially developed at Lyft. This too can also be obtainable as a standalone open source project, separate to Envoy. And at last there’s Gloo Extensions, which helps corporations prolong and customise their API infrastructure.

Above: Solo.io: Gloo Mesh

So how does all this look as a part of an organization’s broader know-how stack? Effectively, Solo.io occupies the center to higher parts of the OSI model‘s seven layers, in keeping with Frieberg. This sees corporations akin to Cisco sit on the backside of the pyramid offering the physical layer for shifting knowledge. The mannequin then strikes on up via layer 2. (data link layer), 3. (network layer), 4. (transport layer), 5. (session layer), 6. (presentation layer), and seven. (application layer). Solo.io lives roughly in the course of this construction, managing the communications between functions (the API gateway) and inside functions (the service mesh).

“Firms want to attach, handle, and safe utility visitors between their functions and inside the microservices that make up their apps — and so they wish to do it with a contemporary method and leverage open supply, de-facto trade customary applied sciences like Kubernetes, Istio and Envoy,” Frieberg defined.  “Solo helps you simplify your utility networking with unified management, reliability, observability, extensibility, and safety.”

Solo.io has amassed a reasonably spectacular roster of consumers in its 4 yr historical past, together with SAP, Snyk, BMW, and T-Cell, whereas it has raised round $36.5 million in enterprise capital funding. With one other $135 million within the financial institution, the corporate is well-financed to double down on its “home and worldwide go-to-market technique,” which is able to embody recruiting throughout departments and investing in product growth and R&D.

The corporate’s sequence C backers embody lead buyers Altimeter Capital Administration and Lead Edge Capital, with participation from Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures.