Apigee Brings Its Web API Work To The UK

API management company Apigee has set up shop in the UK, as it looks to help businesses with their strategies to deliver content and services through Web APIs, following success in the US.

Apigee will employ 10 people in its London HQ to start, but expects to double that in the next six to nine months. The office itself is just off of Paddington.

Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor told TechWeekEurope the organisation had established a UK base because Europe was the company’s fastest growing region. Kapoor also pointed to the “availability of talent” in the UK.

Scouting for Web API talent

“I mean diverse talent,” he said. “The UK has a lot of technology talent. It’s not just sales people but technologists too, programmers and people like that.

“Most customer traction we’ve gotten has been out of London… most of our critical mass is in London.”

Apigee’s growth in the UK will not be limited to hiring, as Kapoor revealed it is on the verge of securing an acquisition of a company with a significant number of workers based here. He could not go into detail on who the acquisition target was.

It already has a number of big name customers here, including the Financial Times and Shazam, which is making its entire service available via an API (application programming interface), Kapoor said.

The vendor has been described as a “Google Analytics of APIs”, but it also offers APIs to companies and provides more services to support a full strategy. Instead, it sees itself as a big middleware provider too.

“[With Shazam we offer] four big pieces of functionality. One is management features where you can do things to the API, like security, virtualisation, things like that. The second thing is Developer Connect, which is connecting with developers, making sure their keys [work],” Kapoor said.

“Third is analytics, so the developers know what they’re using as well as Shazam knows what developers are using their APIs. The fourth is consumability – it’s not good enough to just have a good service and a pretty website, you have to make sure you have tools that developers can use to build around your API.”

One of the Apigee’s biggest successes to date has been with US telecoms firm AT&T. The company already works with some big name ISPs on UK soil, but wants to do more.

“BT has been a little slower than expected, but we are working with them. Vodafone is a customer, as is O2,” Kapoor added.

“We’re making very good progress in the operator space across Europe.”

Another US-based firm set up a hub in the UK this month, as cloud storage provider Box established an office.

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