nginx
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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.
Rob Whiteley
Rob Whiteley is the CEO of Coder, an Austin-based enterprise platform for cloud development environments (CDEs) that lets engineering teams spin up fully-configured, browser-based dev environments in minutes. Appointed in May 2023, Whiteley drove 2x revenue growth in his first year, secured a $90M Series C led by KKR in April 2026, and has positioned Coder as the infrastructure layer for agentic AI coding workflows. Before Coder, he spent a decade at F5/NGINX as VP/GM of the NGINX product group and CMO, and earlier held executive marketing roles at Hedvig, Riverbed, and Forrester Research.