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
Grid Dynamics Co-Hosts Physical AI Summit Alongside NVIDIA, EAIGG, and BGV to Accelerate Manufacturing Automation23.9.2026 23:05:00 EEST | Press release
Grid Dynamics Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: GDYN) (“Grid Dynamics”), a premier AI transformation partner for the Fortune 1000, announced today that it is co-hosting the Physical AI Summit alongside NVIDIA, EAIGG, and BGV. The invite-only working forum will bring together participants from enterprises, Physical AI startups, and investors on September 24, 2026, at the Wells Fargo Innovation Center in Menlo Park, CA. Centered on the theme "From World Models to Real-World Control," the summit will focus on the practical challenges of deploying, scaling, and operating Physical AI systems in production. Grid Dynamics' participation builds on its strategic partnerships with NVIDIA and Doosan Robotics, expanding its Physical AI capabilities to advance enterprise robotics applications. Ilya Katsov, CTO, Americas at Grid Dynamics, will lead a session titled "Operationalizing Physical AI: Lessons From the Field." The session will draw on Grid Dynamics' experience deploying Physical AI, including humano
Liquid AI, in Collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Brings Personal AI Context to Devices Powered by Snapdragon23.9.2026 22:00:00 EEST | Press release
Liquid AI today, at Snapdragon Summit 2026, announced that Liquid Context, an on-device context layer, is now optimized for Snapdragon® processors, specifically using the Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU. In collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Liquid Context built a persistent understanding of the user from signals from devices with Snapdragon processors and made relevant context available to AI agents, whether they ran on the device, in the cloud or across both. Device manufacturers now have a foundation for more proactive, personalized and trustworthy AI experiences, alongside Liquid Agent, Liquid AI’s efficient embedded agent. Personal Context That Makes Any Agent More Useful Useful agents need to understand what matters to the user and when help is needed. With the user’s permission, Liquid Context learns from device signals, builds an understanding of routines, preferences and needs, and keeps that understanding current. It provides a shared context layer between the device and the us
Doha Debates Podcast Returns for a New Season Exploring the Ideas Shaping Our World23.9.2026 20:29:00 EEST | Press release
Qatar Foundation’s Doha Debates has launched a new season of the Doha Debates Podcast, with 20 episodes airing weekly through February 16, 2027. The series brings leading global thinkers together to debate some of the world’s most complex and challenging issues. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923050361/en/ Doha Debates Podcast Returns for a New Season (Photo: AETOSWire) The podcast carries forward themes from its flagship debates and town halls through long-form conversations, reflecting Doha Debates’ commitment to open, truth-seeking dialogue exploring global issues with depth, nuance and respect for diverse perspectives. The opening episode, “Will China or the West lead the world into the future?” moderated by Soraya Salam, brings together Renata Ávila, CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation; Arnaud Bertrand, entrepreneur; Isabel Hilton, visiting professor at the Lau China Institute, King's College, London
Dryad Wins International XPRIZE Wildfire Award for Autonomous Wildfire Detection and Suppression23.9.2026 20:00:00 EEST | Press release
Dryad Networks, a leader in ultra-early wildfire detection, today announced it has been awarded $800,000 in the XPRIZE Wildfire competition for its performance in the Autonomous Wildfire Response finals in Alaska. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923024178/en/ Silvaguard Observation and Suppression drone and Hangar Dryad advanced from an original field of approximately 300 entrants in the four-year competition. In June 2026, three finalists were challenged to autonomously detect and completely suppress a high-risk wildfire within 10 minutes of ignition across 1,000 km² of Alaskan wilderness, leaving any decoy fires untouched. It was the most demanding live test to date of what it will take to stop a destructive fire before it grows out of control. During the tests, the Dryad’s Silvanet sensor network successfully detected and verified target fire in 12 minutes or less and autonomously launched a response, ig
SES Appoints Michel Scholer to Board of Directors23.9.2026 19:54:00 EEST | Press release
SES today announced the appointment of Mr. Michel Scholer, Secretary General of the Luxembourg Government and Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, to its Board of Directors effective immediately. This appointment is part of SES’s Board succession planning and ongoing commitment to regularly review and strengthen the composition of its Board with diverse expertise and industry experience, ensuring the company is well positioned for future growth and value creation. Prior to his current role with the Luxembourg Government, Mr. Scholer served as a Senior Adviser to the International Monetary Fund, and with the Ministry of Finance, Luxembourg. He was nominated for the SES Board of Directors by the Government of the Grandy Duchy of Luxembourg. Follow us on: LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | X | Instagram Read our Blogs > Visit the Media Gallery > About SES At SES, we believe that space has the power to make a difference. That’s why we design space solutions that help governments protect, bus
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