WunderGraph Secures $7.5M Series A to Advance Open-Source GraphQL Federation

WunderGraph, a company focused on simplifying API management, recently announced a significant milestone: securing $7.5 million in Series A funding. This round was led by Karma Ventures, with strategic participation from eBay Ventures, alongside Aspenwood Ventures and several angel investors. This investment marks a pivotal moment for the company as it aims to scale its open-source GraphQL Federation platform, Cosmo.

Interestingly, this funding round comes when WunderGraph had already achieved profitability by early 2025. The company demonstrated remarkable capital efficiency, boasting a burn multiple of just 0.14 – meaning it spent only $140,000 for every $1 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) added in 2024. This efficiency provided a virtually infinite runway, raising the question: why seek funding? The answer lies in the strategic opportunity presented by a key customer turned investor: eBay.

The Journey to GraphQL Federation

The path to this success wasn’t always smooth. In the summer of 2023, WunderGraph faced a critical juncture. The team, gathered during a company retreat, confronted the reality that their initial product, a “Backend For Frontend” framework, wasn’t gaining the expected market traction.

Reviewing insights gathered from customer interactions, the team identified a significant opportunity. They possessed an API Gateway capable of transforming various APIs into GraphQL, with basic support for Apollo Federation. This realization sparked a strategic pivot. The decision was made to develop a new, fully open-source platform dedicated to GraphQL Federation – and Cosmo was conceived. Within two months, the first customer was onboarded, but challenging times lay ahead before Cosmo truly took off.

Navigating Early Challenges

With Cosmo in its nascent stages and funds dwindling, accelerating sales became crucial for survival. Hopes were pinned on the GraphQL Conf in San Francisco, where Cosmo was publicly unveiled for the first time.

The conference presented a mix of hope and anxiety. While presenting technical concepts like Dataloader 3.0, the team privately acknowledged the precariousness of their situation. A memorable, almost cinematic moment occurred when representatives from Apollo, a major player in the GraphQL space, visited their modest booth, seemingly viewing them with skepticism. At that point, WunderGraph had only three customers and a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of just $3,000. Maintaining optimism was difficult.

Despite the pressures, the trip yielded valuable connections that would later prove instrumental. An uplifting encounter occurred at a Benihana restaurant, where the founders shared a table with two vibrant gentlemen in their 90s, Ale and Bill. This meeting served as a poignant reminder of the importance of relationships and experiences beyond the intense focus of startup life.

A Race Against Time and Technology

Returning from San Francisco, the team faced a surge of initial interest, with over 30 sales calls scheduled. However, converting this interest into paying customers proved challenging. By the end of 2023, Cosmo counted only two customers, generating $2,500 MRR, as one early adopter had been lost to a competitor. With only six months of runway remaining, the pressure intensified.

Technical hurdles also presented significant obstacles. The Query Planner, a core component of Cosmo responsible for orchestrating data fetching across federated APIs, required meticulous refinement to handle the numerous edge cases inherent in GraphQL Federation. Fortunately, the typically longer enterprise sales cycles provided just enough time to address these issues and secure more customers before the runway disappeared entirely.

Momentum began building slowly in early 2024, with the first significant customer wins occurring in March. Then, an unexpected development changed everything.

A Turning Point: The eBay Connection

In early March 2024, a routine notification signaled a new customer signup for Cosmo’s $500/month self-service plan. This signup stood out – it originated from eBay. Intrigued why a large enterprise like eBay would use the self-signup option instead of contacting sales, the WunderGraph team reached out.

Conversations quickly evolved from technical discussions about Cosmo’s capabilities to a deeper alignment on the future vision for GraphQL within enterprise environments. Shared values and a common perspective on leveraging GraphQL led to a formal partnership, with a contract finalized within just two months.

Bryan Woodruff, VP of Seller Experience Engineering at eBay, commented on the collaboration:

At eBay, our developers leverage Federated GraphQL management tools to enhance productivity and streamline ways of working, all in service of providing more innovative experiences for our customers. Our investment in WunderGraph’s highly performant open-source platform will help boost eBay’s API ecosystem and enable our teams to work faster and smarter in building products that help our sellers thrive.

Achieving Growth and Profitability

The period following the eBay engagement was marked by intense activity and rapid growth. Demand surged, leading to the onboarding of numerous new clients, including prominent names like On The Beach, SoundCloud, EOG Resources, and INNIO, among others (many under NDAs). The team focused intensely on execution throughout the remainder of 2024, resulting in a period of relative quiet on public communication channels.

By the end of 2024, WunderGraph had achieved profitability, prompting strategic decisions about the future – whether to continue bootstrapping or pursue Series A funding. The burgeoning relationship with eBay provided a clear direction.

The Power of Early Believers

WunderGraph’s journey was significantly influenced by key early partners. Tailor Inc., a startup building a headless ERP system, approached WunderGraph shortly after the pivot to Cosmo. They required Federation v2 support for WunderGraph’s underlying GraphQL engine (a library developed since 2018 that also powers the Cosmo Router). Tailor’s commitment not only partially funded critical engine development but also provided invaluable use cases and feedback. Special thanks were extended to Yo Shibata (CEO), Misato Takahashi (CTO), and Jack Chuka (Head of Platform) at Tailor for their trust.

Similarly, Sven and Fredrik from Soundtrack Your Brand expressed early interest in Cosmo for their sophisticated internal GraphQL platform. Their advanced use cases pushed the boundaries of Cosmo’s capabilities at the time. Recognizing the development effort required, they committed to the vision. Access to their schemas and requirements was crucial in stress-testing and refining the platform. Getting Soundtrack Your Brand into production by January 2024 was a major milestone that catalyzed further growth.

Strategic Partnerships for the Future

The Series A funding brings not only capital but also strategic expertise. Tommi Uhari, Partner at lead investor Karma Ventures, joins WunderGraph’s board. Karma Ventures, based in Tallinn, Estonia, specializes in deep tech software companies. Their alignment with WunderGraph’s vision for the future of APIs, AI, and enterprise GraphQL was a key factor in the partnership.

Tommi Uhari stated:

APIs run the world’s biggest platforms, but at scale, they can turn into bottlenecks. WunderGraph cuts through the complexity – it’s efficient, scalable, and open. World-leading customer interest confirms its potential to redefine how modern applications are built. We’re excited to partner with the WunderGraph team as they set a new standard for the industry.

The relationship with eBay evolves from customer to strategic partner, aiming to co-develop an enterprise standard for GraphQL Federation – a modular, open-source platform robust enough for eBay’s scale yet flexible for diverse environments.

Vision for the Future of API Management

WunderGraph is poised to build upon its success. The team believes they have validated a model for GraphQL Federation applicable to both startups and large enterprises like eBay. The focus now shifts to scaling operations and product development.

Product plans include evolving GraphQL Federation beyond its current iterations (v1 and v2), aiming for a simpler, stricter standard that embraces APIs beyond GraphQL, including Kafka, OpenAPI, and gRPC. Additionally, WunderGraph is developing a new product envisioned as a “GitHub for APIs,” facilitating API discovery, understanding, sharing, and collaboration among developers.

Building the Team

To realize this vision, WunderGraph is expanding its team of currently under 20 people. Key roles being hired include experienced VPs of Sales and Marketing to scale go-to-market efforts and community growth, respectively. Software Engineers passionate about Golang, APIs, Open Source, frontend development, and full-stack engineering are also sought to contribute to the core GraphQL engine, Cosmo Router, and the new API collaboration platform.

Conclusion: The Core Belief

At its core, WunderGraph operates on the conviction that APIs are the bedrock of modern digital business. Effective access to real-time data via unified APIs is essential for applications, AI-driven services, and automated agents. The company’s mission is to empower organizations to consolidate their API landscape, simplifying discovery and collaboration to accelerate innovation.

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