Prague, October 10, 2022 – The technology startup Superface, which connects applications through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) in a fraction of a second, has raised €2.6 million (CZK 65 million) in a seed investment round. Estonian equity fund Tera Ventures, led by Eamonn Carey, invested in the startup, whose ultimate vision is to create the world's largest catalog of automated APIs. The fund has already invested more than $67 million in successful tech projects around the world, including big startups like Montonio and Scoro. Superface’s other new investors in this round are Caesar Ventures, Quantum Angels, Startup Istanbul, as well as angel investors Nicolas Mohr, Michael Vath, and Siim Teller. In addition, Superface has again been backed by funds 42CAP and Tensor Ventures, whose portfolio includes blockchain-based platform Tatum and tech company Passengera.
The amount of time, effort, and money that companies spend on the search and integration of APIs is enormous. After meeting the Superface team, I immediately fell in love with the idea of eliminating all the complexity behind the process. The team’s vision of employing AI for autonomous integrations represents a pleasant change needed by founders and developers all around the world. Superface is creating something that will radically simplify the work of developers, and we are happy to take part in this journey,
says Eamonn Carey, general partner of Tera Ventures.
The investment will help us focus on product-market fit and increase market traction. Along with the investment from Tera VC, we have also received capital from 42CAP, Tensor Ventures, and other expert angel investors interested in technology and marketing. Our thanks also go to Applifting for their continued support. At the moment, we are prioritizing integrations, with strong demand coming mainly from advanced startups. These startups often have more than a hundred API integrations on their roadmap, while the cost per integration can range from a thousand to tens of thousands of euros, depending on the complexity. Using Superface, startups can save significant amounts of money and work which can then be utilized for innovations in other areas,
says Radek Novotný, CEO and co-founder of Superface.
This year we want to focus primarily on tuning the product for external integrations. Our ambition is to create the largest catalog of all public APIs — a kind of ‘Google of APIs‘. Developers will be able to search through our database based on an API’s purpose, selected parameters, and their connection in a few clicks. Developers won't have to do complicated searches for specific APIs in the documentation and perform many days of analysis. On top of this, we can also help large companies internally. With Superface, companies will have a clearer idea about the various APIs they use,
adds Zdeněk Němec, CTO and co-founder of Superface.
Cost savings in tens of thousands of euros
Following this recent seed round, Superface’s new target group is mid-size and large companies. These usually carry a significant technical debt in the area of integrations and pass them on between internal teams. Superface helps them save both time and money on integrations, because it does not serve just as a middleman, but rather as an intermediary without charging fees to call APIs. One such example is Superface’s cooperation with Crowd.dev which registers about 2 million executions a week.
Superface currently has a team of 14 people, consisting of senior developers specializing in API development, integrations, and design. This team works mainly on public APIs. Next year, the startup plans to recruit up to 20 more people, primarily for technology, product, development, online marketing and commerce. In the future, Superface wants to focus on automation by integrating open APIs that will be searched, connected, and managed by algorithms and AI in the digital world. The AI itself will be trained on the current database built by Superface in conjunction with a global community of 1,200 developers.
Product trusted by investors and funds
In addition to 42CAP and Tensor Ventures, Superface was backed with EUR 1.3 million (CZK 34 million) by the Czech freelance development studio Applifting in the pre-seed phase. As a confirmation of their confidence in Superface, these funds provided capital in the seed phase.
The German fund 42CAP already has experience with similar startups. It is led by Thomas Wilke, who has successfully exited eCircle and Shine in the past. The deeptech fund Tensor Ventures boasts the blockchain platform Tatum and startup Aireen as part of its portfolio. Aireen specializes in diagnosing diseases of affluence using machine vision.
More about Superface
Superface is revolutionizing the API market. The path once trodden by a developer will no longer have to be repeated by legions of others, because machines will do the routine work for them. What they previously had to laboriously search, compare, and implement, Superface transforms into three lines of code. With its unique interface and open community, Superface allows developers to connect to any API in seconds. The end goal is to build a marketplace with fully automated purchasing of all digital services — done by artificial intelligence and with no human intervention required. All that with automatic maintenance capable of finding another suitable API provider in the event of a failure. The idea behind the Superface platform has attracted leading technology investors from Germany and the Czech Republic, funding from which has allowed the startup to recruit top technology experts and continue its rapid pace of development.
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