# Kong Inc.

> Kong Inc. builds the connectivity fabric for APIs, microservices, and now AI traffic. Its open-source gateway sits in front of billions of requests at companies like Cargill, SkyScanner, GE, and Sky. In 2024 it raised a $175M Series E at a $2B valuation, sharpened its pitch as 'the AI connectivity company,' and shipped an AI Gateway that brokers calls to LLMs the same way Kong has long brokered calls to REST APIs.

- **Founded:** 2009
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founders:** Augusto Marietti (Co-founder & CEO), Marco Palladino (Co-founder & CTO), Michele Zonca (Co-founder)
- **Team size:** ~800 employees
- **Products:** Kong Gateway, Kong Konnect, Kong AI Gateway, Kong Mesh, Kong Insomnia
- **Notable:** Raised $175M Series E at $2B valuation in 2024, Powers API traffic at Cargill, Sky, GE, Honeywell, SkyScanner, Kong Gateway: 40k+ GitHub stars, one of the most-starred API projects on GitHub

## Products & services

- **Kong Gateway** — Open-source, high-performance API gateway built on Nginx/OpenResty. Powers the rest of the stack.
- **Kong Konnect** — Unified SaaS API management platform - one control plane across clouds, gateways, and regions.
- **Kong AI Gateway** — Manages traffic, security, prompts, and cost for calls to LLMs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and self-hosted models.
- **Kong Mesh** — Enterprise service mesh built on the open-source Kuma project, for east-west microservice traffic.
- **Kong Insomnia** — Open-source API design, testing, and collaboration tool for developers.
- **Kuma** — Open-source, CNCF service mesh project donated by Kong.

## Achievements

- Raised $175M Series E at $2B valuation in 2024
- Powers API traffic at Cargill, Sky, GE, Honeywell, SkyScanner
- Kong Gateway: 40k+ GitHub stars, one of the most-starred API projects on GitHub
- Donated Kuma to the CNCF
- Acquired Insomnia in 2019, growing it into a developer favorite

## Latest updates

- **2024-11** — Closed $175M Series E at $2B valuation, led by Tiger Global and Balderton.
- **2024** — Repositioned publicly as 'the AI connectivity company' with new AI Gateway plugins.
- **2024** — Hit $146.1M ARR with 130+ enterprise logos reported by third parties.

## Links

- Website: https://konghq.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/konghq
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/thekonginc
- GitHub: https://github.com/Kong/kong
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KongInc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mashape

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/kong
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-28