Tempest founders Lukasz Jagiello and Ken Kouot
It’s the dirty secret of many large companies today: in a world where every business is betting on technology, they have recruited thousands of software engineers to develop the products and services of the future – but they haven’t built systems and infrastructure to support them properly. The result is frustration for all concerned: companies are struggling to track and enable their developers while engineers often feel as if they’re wading through treacle to get anything done.
That’s where Tempest, a San Francisco-based start-up that is today announcing it has completed a $3.2 million funding round, thinks it can compete. The business, launched by a trio of former Apple executives, has developed a developer platform that companies can deploy to bring some order to the chaos.
“I can’t tell you how fed up and demotivated so many developers feel,” says Kenneth Kouot, one of the Tempest founders and the company’s CEO. “These are creative people who are desperate to get on with building the products and features that excite them but are being stopped in their tracks by endless delays, provisioning issues and other roadblocks.”
The effects on businesses are equally dispiriting. “As organisations grow, their ability to ship reliable software slows dramatically,” Kouot adds. “The costs are staggering – security vulnerabilities, customer dissatisfaction, developer burnout, spiralling R&D costs and lost market opportunities.”
Independent research backs up such arguments. Market analyst Forester has published data suggesting 85% of enterprises experience revenue growth after making investments in developer experience. Management consultant McKinsey says companies that deliver a superior developer experience can expect growth that is four to five times’ faster than those that do a better job.
Tempest’s job, therefore, is to deliver a platform that provides that superior experience. The world’s biggest technology companies have invested heavily in custom-built solutions, Kouot says, but most enterprises don’t have the resources or the expertise to do that; they need to buy in a solution.
To differentiate itself from rival offerings, Tempest’s version of that solution incorporates two elements. First, it includes a developer portal, where businesses can place all the resources that developers will need so that they’re in a single and easily accessible location; the portal also enables businesses to manage and track the activities of their developer teams.
The second part of the proposition is a developer experience platform, where the goal is to enable engineers to manage their workflows more effectively, from code design through to deployment.
Tempest’s early feedback from the dozen or so companies with which it has been co-developing the platform has been encouraging. Investors in the business also note the pedigree of the founders. Kouot’s co-founders are Lukasz Jagiello and Eric Skram – the three worked together to launch a previous business, Fleetsmith, which they sold to Apple, joining the tech giant as part of the deal.
Today’s $3.2 million round is led by early stage venture firm Abstract Ventures, with participation Box Group and Background Capital, alongside strategic investments from Max Mullen, the co-founder of Instacart, Jason Chan, a former vice president of InfoSec at Netflix, and Mike Abbott, a former VP of engineering at Apple.
“Tempest is building the foundation that future engineering teams will be built on,” says David Kwon, a partner at Abstract Ventures. “We believe the Tempest team is creating a best-in-class developer experience.”
Investor Jason Chan adds: “In my experience, the most effective organisations provide developers with clear, secure pathways – what we now call paved roads – which is something we introduced early on in my career at Netflix; Tempest makes it easy to implement those pathways, removing the friction that slows down teams and putting security and compliance on autopilot.”
The company doesn’t have the market to itself. Streaming giant Spotify, for example, is pushing Backstage as a solution for developers, having built the platform in-house for its own needs. Other start-ups in the field include Cortex and Port.
However, Kouot insists Tempest can hold its own against these rivals. “What sets us apart is how we seamlessly integrate with your entire software stack – not just some tools, but all of them,” he claims. “This means platform teams can focus on governance and enablement, rather than maintenance and custom integration work.”
