EBay supports Wundergraph to build a Graphql Federation

A newly established open source boot that projects to deal with the API spread to Graphic The ecosystem has secured the support of the giant ebay of e -commerce.

ChatterAs the company is called, it today said it has raised $ 7.5 million in a series of funding in Series A to “escalate the Graphql open source”.

Investors include eBay’s VC arm ebay ventures; Karma Ventures; Aspenwood Ventures. In addition to investing in startup, eBay also serves as a key design partner, as Wundergraph has set up to build an alternative open source solution in rival products by Graphql Company, Apollo.

“Our investment in Wundergraph’s highly skillful open source platform will help enhance the eBay API ecosystem and allow our teams to work faster and smarter in building products that help our sellers thrive,” said Bryan Woodruff, Vice -President.

Founded in 2020, Wundergraph is Handiwork of CTO Dustin DeusChief executive Jens neuseCOO Björn schwenzerand CCO Stephen (Picture above, from left to right).

While three of the company’s founding quartets are based in Germany, the company has been incorporated into the US since its establishment. Miami -based Avram joined the classroom in 2022 to ensure that the business has a leading position in the US

There is an API for this

Graphql, for the indefinable, is a data question language for API (Application Planning Interfaces) developed in Meta (then on Facebook) in 2012 as part of the transition from tissue wrappers to inherent mobile applications. The company Open Sourced Graphql in 2015and later transferred the work to his own homonymous institution under the auspices of the Linux foundation.

Simply put, graphql allows customers (ie applications) to request the exact data they need instead of exceeding the data, which increases the use of the bandwidth and the cost or lower, which may require multiple requests to obtain all the data required. This makes it more effective than traditional API rest.

In general, the graphql supports the API economy as the software is borne by micro-approvements that make up ingredients that are easier to maintain than the code monoliths. However, as the application increases and the number of API grows, this can create an unpleasant chaos that is difficult to orchestrate on a scale.

Wundergraph has gone through a few repetitions over the years. Initially created a software growth kit (SDK) to allow developers to integrate API multiple, including Graphql, REST, SOAP and databases such as MySQL. Fast forward by 2023, and the company set a Round of $ 3 million seed To feed the API revolution by creating what is called “Github for API” – a platform for people to work together, share and explore API.

Meantime, Apollo had raised a huge amount of money To feed the Graphics federation Efforts, which concern the help of many groups to work and create graphs together in larger applications as part of a distributed architecture. However, in the tail of 2021, however, Apollo also changed the product of the federation from An open source MIT license in a privately owned “available source” elastic permit.

This is where Wundergraph saw the opportunity to bounce.

“Until the summer of 2023, it became tough, because we didn’t get the deals we needed and the whole business didn’t go in the direction we wanted,” Neuse told TechCrunch.

As the founders were confused to turn things around, they examined various sales notes and noticed that customers continued to report the Apollo license.

“The facts showed us that some people were really looking for an open source alternative to the Apollo Federation,” Neuse said. “We thought that our current approach is not working, so let’s get an open source alternative to the Apollo Federation.”

So at the end of 2023, wundergraph made Cosmo’s debut for this explicit purpose.

The ebay factor

As with almost any open source project under the leadership of the seller, Wundergraph is the main conservator and partner of the open source effort. In addition to COSMO, the company sells high quality hospitality and support and services, which may include assistance in integrating databases, analysis, authentication and observation.

Larger companies can, of course, create their own version of Cosmo in-house. But if the basic focus of a company is, say, building an e-commerce market, it would probably not have to develop and maintain every aspect of its stack-it would use COSMO instead and pay Wundergraph for support supported by strong service agreements (SLA).

This is where Wundergraph’s collaboration with eBay has proven to be fruitful. It is essentially a two -way process by which ebay gets the flexibility of a Graphql Open Source Federation that suits its needs and Wundergraph gets the immediate design entry from a worldwide juggernaut.

“I would say we are experts in the federation, but we do not have experience in eBay scale problems,” Neuse explained. “And so having this very close relationship, they taught us everything about how to build our product so that it can be integrated into companies like ebay because they have very specific requirements.”

These requirements may include the integration of a company’s systems and tools with COSMO, for example, if it only wants to use parts of the product. This also convinced Neuse and the team that the open source is the way to go if they wanted to attract big customers who do not want to be locked in a privately owned product.

“These [eBay] It really helped us convert COSMO into a product that can be used by any large business because privately owned alternatives are trying to take you to a fenced garden ecosystem, “Neuse said.” This market must be as wide as possible. How can we attract everyone? It must be an open source. We cannot limit the way people use it. ”

With fresh $ 7.5 million in the bank, Wundergraph reports that it plans to increase its existing workforce 20 and double the GraphQL open source federation with additional tools that help distributed groups to operate smarter-this means better support for cooperation.

“Open Source is the future of API management and businesses require transparency, flexibility and control,” co -founder Stefan Avram added. “We build the basic plumbers for the world’s largest platforms and this funding allows us to scale our commitment to open source development at the same time.”