Metamap Raised $70 Million, WunderGraph Released WunderHub, Open API Ecosystems
This is issue 2021.52 of the API Changelog, a weekly mix of API news, commentary, and opinion. In this issue, you’ll get to know the most relevant API-related information from the week of December 27, 2021. Subscribe now, so you never miss an issue of the API Changelog.
Funding and M&A
Galoy, a Bitcoin banking infrastructure company, raised $3M in a Seed round. Craft Ventures led the investment, with participation from Trammell Venture Partners, Kingsway Capital, and Fulgur Ventures, among others.
Metamap, a reputation and digital trust management platform, raised $70M in a Series B round. Tribe Capital led the investment, with participation from Titan Capital, Craft Ventures, and Alameda Research, among others.
Announcements
WunderGraph announced the release of WunderHub. The new product lets you search APIs and integrate them with a single command. WunderGraph wants “to make API integration as simple as npm install. Their goal is to make APIs as portable as Docker containers, allowing API developers and their consumers to collaborate at a whole new level.” They do that by making almost any type of API available through GraphQL.
API-first
Srinivas Jayanthi wrote “Enabling an API-first approach.” Srinivas starts by explaining that an “API-first approach means that all software development starts with a mindset that the software capabilities being built WILL be consumed by other software systems or mobile applications through APIs.” He then explores several tactics to promote the API-first culture and its implementation.
Daragh Mahon, a Forbes Councils Member, wrote “Why APIs Are Key To An Enterprise Cloud Strategy.” In the piece, Daragh asks “How do you drive your business forward, and at a fast pace, to avoid being left behind?” He argues that APIs are the answer and that having a clear API integration strategy is key.
Ruby K Valappil published “Not all APIs are REST and Not all REST Endpoints are the Same.” The article does an outstanding job discerning what types of APIs exist and how to get started with API Design.
Connor Butch wrote “Successful Microservice Architecture.” In this article, Connor goes through what he thinks is essential in microservices. Then, he splits the piece into a set of responsibilities for API providers and consumers.
Practice
Jennifer Riggins wrote “How Government Open APIs Can Address Structural Inequity.” In the article, Jennifer explores the idea that governments have been opening up their API infrastructure and how that has been an enabler of an open API ecosystem. Jennifer interviews Mark Boyd, a specialist in open ecosystems, to get his view on the matter. According to Mark, “if the API is expected to have benefits for the whole society, then you need to go through some sort of impact assessment phase.”
Laravel News published “What is External Services Monitoring, and Why is it Important?” The piece explores the importance of monitoring any external services that you integrate with. According to the author, “seeing precisely what’s going on in your application can be incredibly useful when it comes to fixing errors, debugging performance issues, and seeing which users are experiencing problems with response times.”
Corey Gardner wrote “Making Ruby HTTP Request Easy With Faraday.” In this short article, Corey goes to the point and shows with code how easy it is to make an HTTP request using Faraday.
Management
Oleg Tishkevich published “More On Independent Digital Ecosystems as the Future of Wealth Management.” In the article, Oleg explores the key characteristics and components of an independent digital ecosystem. The author believes that “what these new integrated digital ecosystem development tools bring you is the ability to design your own, unified experience.”
Shantheri Mallaya wrote “How to get ahead in the API Economy.” Shantheri believes that “your API strategy might revolve around creating APIs you can monetize, making your systems more robust or speeding up app development.”
