This article was published on April 3, 2013

MuleSoft debuts ‘integration 2.0’ platform Anypoint; lands $37m from Salesforce, NEA and others


MuleSoft debuts ‘integration 2.0’ platform Anypoint; lands $37m from Salesforce, NEA and others

Integration software company MuleSoft is today announcing that it is bundling a set of new and existing products in a single offering dubbed the ‘Anypoint Platform’. In addition, the company is announcing that it has raised $37 million in new funding from prior investors, as well as first-time backers like NEA and Salesforce.com.

Anypoint

With its new Anypoint Platform integration software product, MuleSoft is offering businesses a way to connect applications, data sources, open APIs and more, either as a cloud-based service or on-premise.

From the pitch (you wouldn’t believe how many times it mentions the rather meaningless term ‘New Enterprise’ in total):

In the era of the New Enterprise, companies must combine an explosion of applications, data, partners and customers into a single, high performing entity.

The New Enterprise is hyperconnected, and open APIs are the catalyst for this revolution. The Anypoint Platform enables companies to win in this new era, by easily connecting disparate SaaS, mobile and on-premise systems, within and across organizations.

Buzzword-laden as it may be, the need for such a modern-day integration software product for business operating worldwide, across industries, is blatant.

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‘Big data’ sources, APIs, mobile and cloud apps are obviously often tremendously valuable endpoints for organizations to connect to when looking to streamline its operations in the hyperconnected world we now live in. They are, however, immensely fragmented, which makes the use of a platform to support the creation, management and connectivity of the increasing number of open APIs quite appealing.

The Anypoint Platform is essentially an integrated set of products, and includes MuleSoft’s open-source Mule ESB, its CloudHub integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS, yessir), the newly released Anypoint API Manager, APIkit and Anypoint Service Registry, APIhub, and Mule Studio, a graphical design environment for developing integration applications either on-premise or in the cloud.

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Ross Mason, founder and CTO of MuleSoft, says:

“Underlying all of the mega-trends and changes in the enterprise are APIs, which leverage Web standards to create a common language for the New Enterprise. The next wave of innovation relies on how easily these applications connect to each other, and APIs are powering that hyperconnectivity.

Today, organizations must connect to survive. The Anypoint Platform enables this connectivity, allowing enterprises to take advantage of the explosion of endpoints and data generated by the diverse set of best-of-breed applications powering their businesses.”

MuleSoft claims it currently supports billions of transactions on a daily basis, and that its software is used in production by thousands of enterprises (New Enterprises!), including behemoths such as Walmart, MasterCard, Nokia and Honeywell.

Funding

In addition to the launch of the Anypoint Platform, MuleSoft is today announcing that it has secured a $37 million round of funding, nearly as much capital as the company has raised in previous financing rounds.

The round was led by NEA, also an investor in the likes of Box, CloudFlare, Nicira, SugarCRM, Tableau and Eucalyptus Systems. Other investors who participated in MuleSoft’s financing round include Salesforce.com, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAP Ventures and Bay Partners.

Greg Schott, president and CEO of MuleSoft, commented on the round:

“Today’s winning companies are reaching far beyond their four walls, into the cloud and onto mobile devices, to deliver the most connected products and most frictionless customer experience possible – we call this the New Enterprise.

The New Enterprise represents a once-in-a-generation shift in the way businesses operate, and MuleSoft has created the integration platform to make this vision possible. This round of funding helps us further cement our position as the definitive leader in the market.”

In total, MuleSoft has now raised $81 million. A likely next step is an IPO, which Schott acknowledged in an interview with Venturebeat.

But for now, MuleSoft says the fresh cash will be used to support its “aggressive growth plans” across both the SaaS and enterprise customer segments and global expansion.

According to a press release, the newly injected money will also be used to “drive category-defining technology innovations for connecting” the – wait for it, wait for it – New Enterprise!

Image credit: Thinkstock

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