WireMock’s Seed Round “Mocks” a Turning Point for API Developer Productivity
Ridge Ventures backs THE API developer productivity platform
By Akriti Dokania, Partner at Ridge Ventures
API (Application Programming Interface) may as well stand for “Actually Pretty Important.” A 2022 report from Gartner found that 94% of companies already employ third-party APIs or are planning to, up from 52% in 2019.
But the process of developing in an API-dependent environment, when APIs can be inaccessible or even non-existent internal APIs, is challenging.
WireMock, the API developer productivity platform, tackles this problem with a realistic and dependable mocking-based solution that simulates real-world API scenarios. The company’s $6.5 million seed round, led by Ridge Ventures, dovetails with an emerging Ridge thesis involving the API development lifecycle, a thesis that Wiremock fits like a glove.
WireMock’s incredible product stems from one of our many new normals: APIs are everywhere — and not going anywhere. The role of APIs in simplifying app development and facilitating collaboration between business and IT teams is far too valuable.
The API consumer economy has exploded over the last decade, and the API-fication of businesses means that more companies are consuming APIs and/or providing their software as an API for others to consume. This translates to a sizable increase in API dependencies that has developers debugging APIs they might not have built or maintained — APIs that are inaccessible, incomplete, or flakier than a croissant.
Here is how WireMock is proving to be an invaluable tool amid the ongoing API arms race, and why the company’s ceiling is sky-high.
Inefficiency, instability, irritation
As the digital transformation boom continues, and more companies flock to microservices architecture and API-based applications, effective API mocking becomes crucial.
Devs are managing an unprecedented load of API dependencies. Erratic third-party APIs are slowing development flows to a crawl, as is the inherently collaborative nature of building APIs. And, without the services of an A+ mocking tool, APIs and applications are more likely to have bugs once they’re ready for production.
Therein lies the issue: that A+ mocking tool isn’t so easy to find. Most of the solutions on the market provide little more than a passing grade.
Third-party sandbox? Slow and unreliable. Mocking on your own server? Poor functionality, and the hassle of maintaining another service. A cheap SaaS solution? Limited matching and dynamic responses (among other pitfalls).
API bottlenecks are piling up. Devs are running out of options — and patience. If only there was an ideal mocking environment to take the trouble out of troubleshooting…
A “remockable” solution
With WireMock, software engineers can simulate third-party or internal APIs robustly, accurately, and quickly. It can even simulate APIs that are still under development, allowing different dev teams to work on APIs in parallel.
WireMock also eliminates the need to use live APIs for development and testing, an approach that’s both expensive and ineffective in terms of feedback and scalability. Same goes for shoddy sandbox environments, which, for development and testing purposes, are about as stable as quicksand.
Here are some specific WireMock features that significantly improve mocking at any stage of the API lifecycle:
- UI that enables developers to create a mock manually, record an existing API to create a stub, or import from OpenAPI, Swagger, or Postman. In addition, WireMock delivers an SDK which enables developers to automate the entire process with no need to access the UI
- WireMock provides maximum flexibility in simulating business scenarios and API responses using dynamic request match and dynamic response generation
- Developers can test how their application performs under challenging conditions to ensure it won’t buckle and compromise UX
Freeing devs from the maelstrom of API mocking is no small feat. Building a solution such as WireMock, and sustaining it as the API consumption economy continues to boom, requires an experienced founding team with deep tech chops.
The genesis of our WireMock obsession
WireMock is in tune with its developer ecosystem because it was born out of a successful open-source project spearheaded by Tom Akehurst, one of WireMock’s co-founders. The stats speak for themselves: the open-source WireMock OSS Project garnered 5.4K stars and 1.3K forked repositories on GitHub, as well as 4M monthly downloads of the Java library.
But the initial signs of WireMock’s importance went beyond the numbers. My Ridge colleagues and I were impressed that the WireMock product was so deeply embedded within the developer community and built on their needs.
Building developer tools might have become commonplace over the last decade, but building a tool that developers love is exceptionally hard. The same can be said for engineering such unique built-in features and commercializing a product that began as a developer’s labor of love.
WireMock’s dynamic duo was up to the task.
It takes two
WireMock co-founders Uri Maoz (CEO) and Tom Akehurst (CTO) complement each other seamlessly.
Uri is a tenacious, hardworking, and proven business leader. He previously served as CRO of Upsolver where he led all revenue functions from sales to customer success and alliances. Before Upsolver, he was the VP of US Business at Anodot, a data analytics startup. He helped establish the company’s US arm in 2015 and grew the US team into a multimillion-dollar business. Earlier in his career, Uri had vast experience leading engineering and product teams.
Tom, WireMock’s technical wizard, is a deep technologist from across the pond who knows the needs of developers as well as anyone. He led an engineering team that built part of the technology behind Walt Disney Parks and Resorts’ Magic Band (who doesn’t love a good Magic Band?!?!). Tom created the Wiremock OSS as a way to solve the productivity bottlenecks caused by unstable environments and late delivery of upstream APIs.
With their complementary skill sets, impressive amount of domain expertise, and endless enthusiasm for the API ecosystem, these two co-founders are equipped for the long haul.
Only the beginning
WireMock’s seed round is a significant milestone on a journey that promises many more to come.
The adoption of APIs across industries is skyrocketing. So is the need for faster time-to-market and seamless integration between software applications. It doesn’t hurt that WireMock services an impressive array of customers: Bilt Rewards, OVO Energy, Jumia, and ePay are among the hundreds of companies that depend on WireMock to simplify and supercharge their API mocking.
A hearty congrats and high-five to Uri, Tom, and the entire WireMock team. Welcome to The Ridge Familia!
