API provider Pusher has announced a Series A聽investment of $8 million led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Heavybit.
The real-time API company helps developers add communication and collaboration features to their apps.
More than 200,000 developers worldwide are using Pusher鈥檚 products and more than 40 billion messages per day are now sent using APIs provided by the company, connecting more than eight billion devices per month.
鈥淧usher came into being because as developers we ran into problems that required real-time infrastructure,鈥� said Pusher co-founder Max Williams.
鈥淲e soon realised that others had the same problem. Application developers are such a vital part of the modern economy.
鈥淲e love providing APIs that allow them to do more and spend their time building amazing products.
鈥淭he majority of our customers are in the US and this investment will allow us to serve them better with an office in California, as well as helping us develop more products that will make developers鈥� lives easier.鈥�
Based in London, Pusher currently employs 60 people. By the end of 2018 the company hopes to have up to 30 people working in a new US office.
The US team, which will be made up of sales, marketing and customer support staff, will initially be based in the offices of investor Heavybit.
As well as ramping-up commercial activities, the funding will allow Pusher to continue its R&D efforts as it works to add more products to its portfolio.
鈥淭he web was built to be mostly asynchronous, but Pusher鈥檚 infrastructure and their unique platform allows the company to rapidly roll out new products to bring real-time features to everyone,鈥� said Balderton Capital partner James Wise.
鈥淲e love that they have been growing organically for a long time by building a hugely admired developer-focused culture and we hope with this capital they鈥檒l be able to serve that market even better.鈥�
Pusher has gained significant traction since the company was formed in 2011. The company鈥檚 products are used by everyone from one-person operations to global brands.
The New York Times uses Pusher for updating its real-time news feeds, Mailchimp for internal collaboration tools, Intercom for chat and DraftKings for updating its real-time leader boards.
The company has begun to diversify its product portfolio. In November 2017, it released a new product in beta, Chatkit, which makes it easier for developers to build chat into their applications.
The product is the first in a new line of products to be released in 2018 that will combine real-time APIs and specific vertical functionality to support different use cases.