Almost every developer wants to create APIs to help other companies connect to their services more easily, but creating and documenting an API is a time-consuming process. Speak simplyan early stage startup wants to make that an easier and more automated set of activities.
Today, the company emerged from stealth with a $7.6 million seed investment.
Speakeasy co-founder and CEO Sagar Batchu describes his startup as an API infrastructure company, meaning it builds tools to make it easier to create and distribute APIs, something close to his heart as a developer . “We started working on an important issue for me, one I’ve dealt with a lot myself as a developer, which dramatically simplifies the way developers can ship APIs to end users,” Batchu told JS.
He sees that APIs give developers a kind of superpower. “As developers, APIs allow us to take advantage of another company’s capabilities. And by making it really easy to ship those APIs to developers, we can really help companies accelerate adoption of their products, and reduce the burden on developers when they integrate with those APIs,” he said.
While the goal is to eventually build a platform with features to aid that mission, the company is starting with two tools: one to help developers create the APIs and one to help their users deploy them more easily.
The first component is called Managed SDKs. Developers provide an Open API specification, and Speakeasy uses AI to build you a complete API along with the necessary documentation, reducing the amount of time it takes to perform such a task to minutes.
“Speakeasy uses AI to validate and improve the specification, creates SDKs in the most popular languages and automatically publishes to package managers. Setup takes minutes and SDKs are updated every time the specification changes, saving developers a lot of time,” the company explains.
The second piece is designed to help the developer’s end user implement that API without worrying about the underlying infrastructure, by creating a package using Hashicorp’s popular Terraform tool.
“Speakeasy allows API manufacturers to easily create and maintain Terraform providers from an OpenAPI specification for the first time – dramatically reducing the engineering burden while unlocking an entirely new developer community,” the company said.
The startup currently has nine employees, but is hiring engineers to further build out the platform. As he builds the business, Batchu believes his distance will help him find a more diverse workforce. “So first of all, I think about how adopting a remote-friendly hiring philosophy means we get access to more places, more diverse communities. It’s definitely something very important to us. And as we go forward, we’ll be looking for great talent from all over,” he said.
Today’s round was led by GV with participation from Quiet Capital, Flex Capital, StoryHouse Ventures and Firestreak Ventures. Last year, the company raised an additional $3.3 million in a pre-seed round led by Quiet Capital with participation from a host of prominent industry investors.
The managed SDK component is generally available today. The Terraform piece is available in beta.