Postman is an Indian-origin global software company that offers an

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

platform for developers to design, build,

test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

, and collaborate on APIs. Over 30 million registered users and 500,000 organizations are using Postman. Postman also maintains the Postman API Network, a directory of over 100,000 public APIs that is listed as the world’s largest such collection. The company is headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and maintains additional offices in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

and

Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

, where Postman was founded. In August 2021, Postman raised a $225 million Series D round at a $5.6 billion valuation making it a unicorn company.

History

Postman started in 2012 as a side project of software engineer Abhinav Asthana, who wanted to simplify API testing while working at

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

Bangalore. He named his app Postman – a play on the API request “POST” – and offered it free in the Chrome Web Store. As the app's usage grew to 500,000 users with no marketing, Abhinav recruited former colleagues Ankit Sobti and Abhijit Kane to help create Postman, Inc. The three co-founders lead the company today, with Abhinav serving as CEO and Ankit as CTO. In 2017, Postman moved its corporate headquarters from

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

. In 2023, Postman announced it had acquired Akita, an API observability solution. In 2024, Postman acquired Orbit, a solution for building and managing developer communities.

Features

Postman features include: * Workspaces: Personal, team, partner, and public workspaces allow for API collaboration internally and externally * API repository: Allows users to store, catalog, and collaborate around API artifacts in a central platform within public, private, or partner networks * API builder: Helps implement an API design workflow through specifications including OpenAPI,

GraphQL GraphQL is a data query and manipulation language that allows specifying what data is to be retrieved (" declarative data fetching") or modified. A GraphQL server can process a client query using data from separate sources and present the res ...

, and RAML. Integrates varied source controls,

CI/CD In software engineering, CI/CD or CICD is the combined practices of continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) or, less often, continuous deployment. They are sometimes referred to collectively as continuous development or contin ...

, gateways, and APM solutions * Tools: API client, API design, API documentation, API testing, mock servers, and API detection * Intelligence:

Security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or ...

warnings, API repository search, workspaces, reporting, API governance Postman v11 was released in May 2024. The update includes AI-powered features to help developers with API test generation, documentation, debugging, and data visualization. V11 also enables more users to share API collections with external partners.

Business model

Postman offers tiered pricing, ranging from free options for small teams to paid plans for larger companies and enterprises.

Ownership

Postman is privately held, with funding from Nexus Venture Partners, CRV,

Insight Partners Insight Venture Management, LLC (commonly referred to as Insight Partners and previously Insight Venture Partners) is a global venture capital and private equity firm that invests in high-growth technology, software, and internet businesses. The ...

, Coatue,

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, and Mary Meeker’s BOND. In May 2015, the company raised a $1 million seed round. In August 2021, Postman raised a $225 million Series D round at a $5.6 billion valuation.

References

External links

* * {{GitHub, postmanlabs Software testing Automation software Application programming interfaces