API platform provider Apigee raises $60 million

Apigee's customers include Walgreens, Dell, eBay, AT&T and Live Nation

With the world quickly going mobile, there are a ton of big companies out there that need to go digital, but simply don't know how to do it. That's why they turn to companies like Apigee, a provider of an API platform, to help them make that transition.

Apigee has been extremely successful, gaining extremely well known clients like Shell and Sears. Now the company is solidifying its position at the top by announcing on Tuesday that it has raised $60 million in new funding, bringing its total raised to $171 million.

New investors Pine River Capital Management and Wellington Management Company participated in the round, along with current investors Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners, Third Point LLC, SAP Ventures, funds managed by BlackRock, Focus Ventures, and Accenture.

The company had most recently raised $20 million in funding the company raised in July of 2012, followed by another $35 million in July of 2013.

Apigee will use the funds for both geographic expansion, and for hiring of key personell, Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor told me. 

"We are building on our API leadership to expand into big data predictive analytics," he said. "We are ramping up Apigee sales and marketing, expanding into new geographic regions to meet strong global demand for digital business technologies. We are also continuing to invest in our technology platform for APIs and big data analytics."

Founded in 2005, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Apigee essentially provides an API platform that can be used by companies to make their services available on multiple mobile devices. On top of the platform, Apigee also provides its customers analytics to measure the activity coming from the apps.

To make it clear what Apigee actually does, let's take the example of what it did for one of its biggest customers, Walgreens.

Walgreens offers a photo-printing service that it wanted to add to make accessible through a mobile device. So the company used Apigee to build an app that runs on the iPhone that allows consumers to upload their photo directly to Walgreens from their phones without having to go onto the Walgreens website first.

Apigee did not build the app but it did provide a layer on top of the Walgreen's infrastructure that enabled Walgreen's engineers to make the website photo-sharing available on mobile devices. For this service, Walgreens then pays an annual subscription, based on a number of metrics, including traffic.

"Most other API management tools are focused on enterprise data integration," said Kapoor. "Apigee, on the other hand, helps companies use APIs and data to meet business goals – to extend beyond the enterprise to create new digital customer experiences at scale."

The company also provides a service called Mobile Analytics, which it introduced in 2012, that allows software developers to quickly detect, diagnose and fix problems with their apps running on mobile devices in real time. It helps them avoid costly negative user experiences that are caused by application errors and poor app performance.

The company also offers its flagship product, Apigee Enterprise, a platform for creating, managing and measuring digital initiatives built on apps, data and APIs.

It also offers Apigee Insights, a big data analytics platform that helps organizations gain new business insights in the app economy. The service was recently given a major overhaul, allowing it to combine predictive analytics and advanced machine learning in a unified platform. 

Lastly, it offers Apigee API Exchange, an API interoperability platform that powers app ecosystems across any industry.

"Today, every business must be a digital business. In a simple terms, this means using data in new ways to radically increase the scale and value of customer interactions," said Kapoor. "We’re not talking about small incremental improvements.  Successful digital businesses are moving in leaps and bounds ahead of their peers."

Apigee's customers include 20% of the Fortune 100 and 25% of the world’s most admired companies, 50% of the top 10 most valuable North American retail brands and by 70% of the world’s 10 most valuable telecoms brands.

Customers include Burberry, Walgreens, Bechtel, GM/OnStar, AT&T, Swisscom, Vodafone, Marks & Spencer, Live Nation, Dell, eBay, Motley Fool and The World Bank.