API developer Postman raises $50 million

Postman, a collaboration platform for API development, announced its Series B round of fund raise of $50 million led by San Francisco-based early-stage investor CRV. Its existing investor Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the funding round.

CRV’s general partner Devdutt Yellurkar has joined Postman’s board of directors, the company said in a statement.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Postman builds platforms for the development and management of APIs (application programming interface), the language by which different software talk to one another. It’s target audience are the world’s 20 million-odd software developers.

“Over the past couple of years, Postman has emerged as a true API development and testing platform and a very fast growing developer community,” said Yellurkar. “CRV is deeply involved in the API and microservices space, and we have been tracking Postman from its early days in Bengaluru.”

In 2014, Abhinav Asthana, Ankit Sobti and Abhijit Kane, co-founded Postman in Bengaluru. Within a year the startup had 2.5 million users. At present, its collaboration platform for API development is used by more than 7 million developers and 300,000 plus companies worldwide.

“We are looking forward to working with Abhinav, Anki, Abhijit and the rest of the team at Postman as they build a foundational software company,” added Yellurkar.

Postman plans to use the new funding to accelerate its product roadmap, expand its commitment to helping companies leverage Postman across the enterprise, and increase customer support and success throughout the Postman community.

“As software development moves from a code-first to an API-first approach, Postman is evolving as the must-have companion for every developer,” said Jishnu Bhattacharjee, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners, which led Postman’s October 2015 seed and Series A funding round, which totaled $7 million. "It has been a real pleasure to have backed Postman from day one. We are super excited about the journey ahead,” added Bhattacharjee, who is also on the Postman board.

Postman CEO and co-founder Abhinav Asthana said, “APIs are the building blocks of effective software – so while software might be eating the world, we know that APIs are eating software. Innovation in APIs will drive the future of software development, and this funding will further accelerate Postman’s growth in the API ecosystem.”