French startup Blobr raised a $5.4 million (€5 million) funding round led by a German venture capital firm 10x founders a few months ago. The company calls itself “Shopify for APIs,” which is a good way to summarize what it does indeed do. Companies that have an API and want to start selling API access to other companies can use Blobr to run their API store.
“If you have an API, you can easily connect it to Blobr with a few clicks,” co-founder Alexandre Airvault told me. “You can then define your products, define the usage scenarios of the API. Once you’ve done that, you can build a business model on top of the API.”
In addition to 10x Founders, FJ Labs, another.vc and various business angels such as Charles Songhurst, Thibaud Elziere, Quentin Nickmans, Amaury Sepulchre, Mathieu Vaxelaire and Chris Aldelbach also participated in the round. Existing investors New Wave and Seedcamp also put more money on the table.
From a technical point of view, Blobr is specifically designed for companies that have already developed their own API. It won’t help you to release an API because Blobr is all about commercialization. But if you’re creating an API-first product, Blobr can help you monetize faster.
To start using Blobr, you must first upload the OpenAPI technical document that defines the structure of your REST API. For now, Blobr only focuses on REST APIs, which is still the most popular API format.
After that, Blobr acts as a proxy to access your API. When someone makes a call to a Blobr-powered API, it will first reach Blobr’s servers and then be redirected to your own servers. The startup’s customers can then create DNS rules to make the transition to Blobr as transparent as possible.
Once this is done, Blobr will help you generate a brand developer portal with different tiers and price points. Developers who want to use an API can then explore the documentation, select the desired product, enter their payment information, and begin deploying the API. Blobr handles usage, billing, API update alerts, and more. The startup also automatically generates bills and can send usage alerts to track usage over time.
unlike Fast API, Blobr doesn’t want to become the Amazon of APIs. It does not have a central hub where it lists all available APIs. Instead, Blobr’s client controls the relationship with its own clients.
In total, Blobr now has 200 customers. So far no one has ‘stripped’ Blobr because there hasn’t been a lost customer. And as Blobr’s customers grow, Blobr’s recurring revenue also grows in parallel, as there is a percentage fee for Blobr transactions. But everyone gets more money.
Image Credits: Blobr
