The rise of API-first companies, in fintech and beyond

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Since I moderated a panel discussion with Jean-Denis Greze of Plaid, I have been paying more attention to the companies that use the API. Not only is Plaid a financial company, but it is not the only one that is seeing a rise in the use ofAPI solutions.

Tracking API-first companies

Alex already had a startup and I was going to try to define it. Since it is no easy feat, I am going to keep the same scope: Any startup that either delivers its main value proposition via an application programming interface or is built to use an application programming interface to facilitate a specific data transference is what I am talking about.

GGV Capital, a multistage VC firm whose areas of interest include finding the most promising developer-first software companies commercializingAPI, defines the definition above.

Authing, Pinwheel, Mindee, Stream and Agora went public in 2020 as a result of GGVs thesis. The acquisition of Auth0 by Okta gave GGV another reason to use a similar approach to tracking other private companies.

Making sense of the $6.5B Okta-Auth0 deal

The 50 private companies that have raised the most funding are ranked by GGV. Deepgram is the last one to make the cut, having raised over fifty million dollars in funding to date. According to GGV, the companies in its index have raised $12 billion in funding.

Beyond fintech

Roughly 40% of GGV's first index is comprised of fintech companies. It shows that there is room for developer-first companies in other places. There is no reason why this would be limited to banking or payment solutions.

The way for a more diverse range ofAPI-led startups was paved by the example of fintech. Stytch raised a $90 million Series B round in November of last year.

"I think that there are other areas that need our attention, even though a16z says that every company is a fintech company." Vivanta is a company that is focused on health data.