Kong Inc.
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Type of business | Private |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Founded | October 30, 2007 |
Headquarters | San Francisco |
Founder(s) | Augusto Marietti (CEO) Michele Zonca Marco Palladino (CTO) |
Industry | Cloud services |
URL | konghq.com |
Registration | Required |
Current status | Active |
Kong Inc. is a software company offering open-source platforms and cloud services to manage, monitor and scale Application Programming Interfaces and Microservices. The main products offered are: Kong, an open-source API and Microservices gateway, Galileo, a platform for API analytics and debugging, Gelato, a platform for the creation of developer portals for APIs and Microservices, and API Marketplace, a marketplace for discovering and publishing cloud APIs.
History
The original product was first developed in 2009 in Milan, Italy and first incorporated in the US as Mashape, Inc. Founded by Marco Palladino, Augusto Marietti and Michele Zonca, the original project was a mash-up (web application hybrid) platform used to aggregate different functions and UI elements from third party products and services. While developing the product for a year, the team dealt with a lot of APIs, and decided to create a unified hub to organize the growing market of APIs. In 2010, the team started the development of the first API marketplace. Mashape appeared online in November 2010 as an Alpha product[1] and launched in private Beta in June 2011.[2] The team raised the first funds in the US.[3]
In 2010, Mashape received its first angel funding from individuals including Max Sgrelli. In 2011, the company then raised $1,500,000 in seed funding.[4] [5] Mashape then rejected some acquisition offers in 2011.[6]
In 2011 the company reached 100 APIs. Mashape moved to private beta on June 2, 2011 while supporting 110 APIs. Three months after, the company reached 200 APIs during the first week of September 2011. As of June 2016 the Mashape Marketplace counted about 250,000 developers.[7]
Technology
In 2015, Mashape released Kong, an open-source management layer for APIs and Microservices that is built on top of Nginx and Cassandra/PostgreSQL with the claim of improving performance and reliability. Kong is the main engine of Mashape's marketplace.[8]
References
- ^ "ReadWriteWeb - Mashape launches a Marketplace for APIs". Archived from the original on 2012-05-29. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
- ^ Mashable - Try Mashape Marketplace
- ^ TechCrunch - The Italian entrepreneur who moved his team and got funded in 19 days
- ^ GigaOm - API Market Mashape raised 1.5M in seed from mega investors
- ^ Forbes Magazine - Bezos and Schmidt among investors betting $1.5M on young Italians of "Mashape"
- ^ TechCrunch - Mashape Turns Down Acquisition Offers; Raises Seed Round From Big Name Investors
- ^ "Mashape Open Sources API Gateway Kong". InfoQ. Retrieved 2016-06-29.
- ^ TechCrunch - Mashape Open-Sources Its Kong API Management Platform