- Apollo, a leading GraphQL API technology company, announced it raised $22 million in funding.
Leading GraphQL API technology company Apollo recently announced it raised $22 million in growth funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Matrix Partners. Existing investors Trinity Ventures and Webb Investment Network also joined the round. In conjunction with this round of funding, Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Peter Levine is joining the board.
What is GraphQL? GraphQL is a query-language-based API technology that can be used for replacing decades-old API technologies like SOAP and REST. The point-to-point aspect of these legacy technologies has created a tight coupling between backend and frontend developers — which holds them back when businesses are under increasing pressure to ship high-quality digital experiences across all of the platforms that their customers use. And GraphQL makes app development much faster by eliminating the tight coupling.
As SQL is the standard language for querying a database, GraphQL is the standard language for querying data graphs. The data graph is the “missing layer of the stack” that is necessary for enabling efficient and secure app development in a multi-device and multi-cloud world. This system gives organizations a single and always-accurate map of all data and digital services. Plus it allows a query to be made that cross multiple data types and services.
“We need to do more to support and empower app developers,” said Apollo CEO and co-founder Geoff Schmidt. “Today, technologies like REST force app developers to spend as much as half of their time not building nice things for users, but writing data-fetching glue code. That’s why it’s gratifying to see companies like Airbnb and Expedia creating company-wide GraphQL-based data graphs using Apollo technology. Our goal is for every company in the world to run on a data graph so that app developers can spend their time building great things for the rest of us.”
The Apollo Data Graph Platform has become an industry standard data graph technology with more than 30 million downloads in the past 3 years. And it allows app developers to build a data graph on top of their existing company APIs and services for accelerating development. Plus it provides the tools that companies need to secure, protect, and monitor data graphs. Some of Apollo’s customers include Expedia, Airbnb, Audi, and SurveyMonkey.
And the Apollo platform limits data graph queries to only those that have been authorized, which works with Continuous Integration systems for protecting the graph from breaking changes and continuously monitors the performance of graph queries to ensure a highly responsive experience for end users. The new Apollo Federation technology allows hundreds of developers to work together on creating one distributed, but seamless data graph for a large enterprise.
“We’re proud to partner with Apollo as they build a unified platform that makes it easy for app developers to get the right data from a myriad of cloud services into the apps and devices that power today’s leading businesses. We see this is an enormous opportunity since every company will need a data graph to help them build world-class digital experiences for their customers,” added Levine.
Apollo plans to use this funding round to support its mission of bringing a GraphQL-based data graph to every app developer including investments in the open source and commercial elements of the Apollo Data Graph Platform.
“We are big believers that GraphQL is emerging as an important new layer in the app development stack,” explained Matrix general partner David Skok. “Every company that has apps needs a data graph. By providing companies with a single, centrally managed marketplace for all of their digital capabilities, Apollo’s Data Graph Platform helps development teams build high-quality apps quickly, across an ever-increasing number of platforms and on top of an ever-increasing number of backend systems and cloud data sources.”
