Kong Raises $100 Million to Accelerate Cloud Connectivity
8.2.2021 18:30:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
Kong Inc., the cloud connectivity company, today announced it has closed $100 million in Series D funding, led by Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investors Index Ventures, CRV, GGV Capital and Andreessen Horowitz as well as new investor Goldman Sachs. This latest round brings Kong’s total funding to $171 million, tripling its valuation to $1.4 billion since the Series C round. Kong will use the capital to scale its go-to-market operations, grow world-class Engineering and Customer Experience teams, and accelerate cloud connectivity with its new SaaS-based Kong Konnect service connectivity platform.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210208005517/en/
Kong Co-Founders Augusto Marietti and Marco Palladino (Photo: Business Wire)
“The shift to digital and cloud has been revolutionary across all fronts, quickly propelling developer-led organizations and API-first companies to the forefront,” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global Management. “With impressive momentum, happy customers and strong market share, Kong is primed to help organizations meet the growing demands of this new digital reality and succeed in today’s cloud native world. We have been following the company closely for the past couple of years, and Kong is really starting to pull away from the rest of the pack.”
The fundraise follows a record year for Kong, marked by a significant increase in adoption of its flagship open source software – Kong Gateway – now exceeding 220 million total downloads and 1.5 million monthly active instances. The company added key Global 2000 companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Papa John’s and Siemens to its growing enterprise customer base, as well as tripled its small business and mid-market enterprise customers. In addition, Kong was recognized as an Inc. 5000 company and a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company with 1,908% revenue growth over a three-year period.
“In 2020, we saw an explosion of data in motion and services as companies fast-tracked the release of new digital experiences in response to the pandemic,” said Augusto Marietti, CEO and co-founder of Kong Inc. “Software is truly becoming like a giant nervous system through millions of APIs and services. Kong is on a mission to become the spinal cord and backbone by building the cloud connectivity fabric of the future.”
IDC predicts that worldwide data will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025, with 49% of the data residing in the cloud. According to Gartner, cloud native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than three-quarters of new digital workloads by 2024. Kong Konnect, a full-stack service connectivity platform designed for cloud native applications and delivered as a service, enables developers, architects and operators to seamlessly deliver connectivity at the edge, within their applications and between applications. It provides universal service connectivity and management that is reliable, observable and secure across any infrastructure.
“Modern infrastructure is driven by open source technologies, and Kong’s open source DNA has played a pivotal role in driving its adoption both in the community and in enterprise organizations,” said Marco Palladino, CTO and co-founder of Kong Inc. “Kong Konnect takes cloud connectivity to the next level by providing a full-stack service connectivity platform that goes from API gateways to services meshes via open technologies like Kong Gateway, CNCF’s Kuma and Insomnia – running across every cloud and every platform, including on Kubernetes and VMs. Teams around the world can now abstract away their enterprise L4-L7 connectivity in one click to build secure, resilient and distributed applications like never before.”
Additional Resources
About Kong Inc.
Kong creates software and managed services that connect APIs and microservices natively across and within clouds, Kubernetes, data centers and more using intelligent automation. Built on an open source core, Kong’s service connectivity platform enables digital innovation by allowing organizations to reliably and securely manage the full lifecycle of APIs and services for modern architectures, including microservices, serverless and service mesh. By providing developer teams with unprecedented architectural freedom, Kong accelerates innovation cycles, increases productivity, and seamlessly bridges legacy and modern systems and applications. For more information about Kong, please visit https://konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210208005517/en/
Contact information
Pauline Louie, Kong, (628) 243-7512, press@konghq.com
Jill Reed, Sift Communications for Kong, kong@siftpr.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
NIKE, Inc. Announces Planned CFO Transition23.6.2026 23:17:00 EEST | Press release
NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) today announced that David M. Denton will join the company as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective August 17. Matthew Friend will step down as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at that time and remain with the company through September 4 to support an orderly transition. Friend will participate in the company’s fourth quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call on June 30, as planned. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260623328558/en/ David M. Denton | Incoming Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, NIKE, Inc. Denton will lead Nike’s global finance organization, partnering with President and Chief Executive Officer Elliott Hill and the Senior Leadership Team to support disciplined execution, capital allocation, and long-term value creation. “Dave is a proven public-company CFO who knows how to help great consumer brands operate with disciplin
Grid Dynamics Hosted XT26, Convening Capital Markets Technology Leaders on the Volatility of AI in Financial Services23.6.2026 23:05:00 EEST | Press release
Grid Dynamics Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: GDYN) (“Grid Dynamics”), a premier AI transformation partner for the Fortune 1000, hosted XT26. The invite-only conference convened over 250 senior technology leaders from banking, hedge funds, and capital markets at Tower Hill, London. Now in its 10th year, the XT conference series has grown into one of financial services engineering's most respected peer forums in London, built on a single premise: pure thought leadership grounded in real-world experience, with no sales pitches, and no vendor presentations. Just practitioners who are actually doing the work. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260623112231/en/ Simone Steel speaking at XT26 The event included speakers and delegates from organizations including Bank of America, Citi, HSBC, UBS, RBC, Barclays, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, Meta, FINOS, and Griffin Bank, among others. With a focus on the volatility of AI i
Thales Secures Significant U.S. Army LOCODA Radio Order Following Rapid Development Push23.6.2026 20:42:00 EEST | Press release
Delivering capability at mission speed, Thales subsidiary, Thales Defense & Security, Inc. (TDSI), has secured an order for up to 5,000 Low Cost Data Architecture (LOCODA) Radio Adaptable Transport (RAT) platforms. The Thales RAT solution, which was conceived, developed and field-ready less than four months, modernizes voice and data communications and integrates effortlessly into radio mounts across all current and future U.S. Army vehicle platforms. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260623043996/en/ Thales Radio Adaptable Transport (c)Thales The LOCODA RAT platform provides soldiers with a reliable, adaptable communications capability they can depend on across any mission and environment. By reusing existing vehicle radio mounts and supporting a wide range of radios and mission modules, it reduces setup time and simplifies integration in the field. Soldiers gain secure, flexible voice and data connectivity tha
Epicor Prism Launches Across European Markets, Bringing Embedded, Industry-Specific AI to Manufacturers23.6.2026 18:55:00 EEST | Press release
Epicor has expanded its AI-driven ERP strategy in the UK and select European markets with the general availability of Epicor Prism, a portfolio of vertical AI agents designed specifically for the supply chain industries. Embedded directly in Epicor Kinetic, Epicor Prism gives customers conversational access to live ERP data and related documents without needing specialised analytics skills or separate AI tools. The launch reflects a broader shift in ERP from systems of record to systems of outcomes that help users interpret data, make decisions and take action in real time — a transformation Epicor calls Cognitive ERP. Responding to pressure on productivity and skills European manufacturers are under growing pressure to raise productivity, strengthen supply chain resilience and remain globally competitive despite workforce constraints and ongoing digital skills shortages. While many organisations continue to invest heavily in ERP, turning operational data into timely insight at the poi
Airship Appoints Laura Zwahlen as Chief Revenue Officer23.6.2026 18:00:00 EEST | Press release
Airship, the mobile-first customer experience company, today announced the appointment of Laura Zwahlen as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Zwahlen will oversee all global revenue-generating activities, driving the alignment, execution, and strategy across Airship’s sales, account management, and customer success teams to accelerate the company’s market leadership and customer impact. She will report directly to CEO Brett Caine. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260623145620/en/ Laura Zwahlen, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of Airship Zwahlen brings more than 20 years of go-to-market and revenue leadership experience, with a proven track record of guiding technology organizations through rapid growth, strategic acquisitions, and public offerings. Previously, she served as CRO at NextRoll (the parent company of AdRoll and AdRoll ABM) where she led global revenue teams and drove initiatives centered on sustainable growth
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom