Zuplo
Zuplo is a Seattle-based edge-native API management platform founded in 2021 that unifies API, MCP, and AI/LLM traffic on a single policy engine across 300+ edge locations, serving engineering teams at enterprises like AccuWeather, Blockdaemon, and Yext via freemium and Enterprise contracts.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersSeattle, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Zuplo does
Zuplo is a Seattle-based, privately held developer of programmable API management software founded in 2021 by co-founders Josh Twist (CEO) and Nathan Totten (CTO). The company operates an edge-native API gateway that runs TypeScript policies inside V8 isolates across 300+ global points-of-presence, delivering sub-50ms latency, 99.99% uptime (up to 99.999% on Enterprise), and unified governance for REST, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and LLM traffic on a single policy engine. Product surfaces include the core API Gateway, an AI Gateway for LLM traffic with multi-provider routing, semantic caching, prompt-injection protection and per-team budgets, an MCP Server that turns OpenAPI routes into AI-agent tools, an MCP Gateway (Beta) that federates upstream MCP servers behind OAuth 2.0, plus developer-portal, monetization, authentication, key management, rate-limiting, observability, and security feature modules — all GitOps-deployed via GitHub with PR preview environments.
Zuplo's revenue model is a hybrid of freemium self-serve (100K requests/month free, no credit card), usage-based platform subscriptions (monthly billing per Terms of Service), and quote-based Enterprise managed-dedicated contracts with single-tenant deployment on AWS, Azure, GCP, Akamai, or self-hosted Kubernetes. Distribution combines product-led growth (free tier, self-serve signup, developer docs, comparison/SEO pages targeting Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway, Azure APIM, and MuleSoft switchers) with an enterprise field-sales motion (30-minute architect working sessions, migration evaluations) and a strategic co-sell partnership with Akamai Technologies announced December 2025. Named enterprise customers include AccuWeather (1B+ end users served), Blockdaemon (90% hardware footprint reduction, 70%+ cost savings, 2-month migration), Yext, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Finsolutia, Mews, and Zumiez. The company has raised $9 million in seed funding led by Trilogy Equity Partners (with boldstart ventures and BoxGroup) in November 2023 and maintains SOC 2 Type II compliance audited annually, with GDPR-aligned data processing and EU data-residency options.
Zuplo firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Zuplo
- Legal name
- Zuplo, Inc.
- Website
- https://zuplo.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Zuplo is a Seattle-based edge-native API management platform founded in 2021 that unifies API, MCP, and AI/LLM traffic on a single policy engine across 300+ edge locations, serving engineering teams at enterprises like AccuWeather, Blockdaemon, and Yext via freemium and Enterprise contracts.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Zuplo industry classification
Industry- Product category
- API Management Platform
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- SDN & Controller-Based Management (Campus/DC Fabrics) (HDAFAMAD)
Keywords
Where Zuplo is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Seattle
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Zuplo business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Free tier self-serve subscription: Free tier offering 100K requests/month with no credit card required; converts into paid usage tiers and enterprise contracts.
- Usage-based platform subscription: Subscription billed monthly per the Terms of Service, with fees based on the product tier selected at account creation and customer usage per Subscription Period.
- Enterprise managed-dedicated contracts: Higher-touch enterprise plans with managed single-tenant deployment, 99.999% SLA, 30-minute response SLA, 24/7/365 emergency hotline, named technical account manager, and architecture/migration professional services.
- Customer-side API monetization (Zuplo-powered billing): Zuplo customers meter and bill their own API consumers using built-in monetization (tiered plans, usage-based limits, Stripe-backed checkout) on the developer portal; drives lock-in and platform usage growth.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free tier — 100K requests/month, no credit card required |
| Hybrid | Monthly | Paid platform subscription — tier-based pricing with usage charges |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Enterprise managed-dedicated contracts (quote-based) |
| Usage-based | Monthly | Customer-side monetization tiers (example: Bronze $7/mo, Silver $39/mo, Gold $129/mo) |
Go-to-market motion5 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Zuplo product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Zuplo provides a unified, edge-native API management platform that runs API Gateway, MCP Gateway, and AI Gateway workloads on a single programmable control plane. It delivers routing, authentication, rate limiting, validation, monetization, and audit-log policies across 300+ global edge locations, with native support for OpenAPI-driven configuration, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and multi-provider LLM traffic governance. Customers use it to secure, monetize, and govern APIs, MCP servers, and AI traffic from one deployment.
Product overview
Zuplo is a unified API management platform composed as one edge-native control plane: the core API Gateway handles routing, authentication, rate limiting, and policy enforcement across 300+ edge locations; the MCP Server turns existing OpenAPI routes into Model Context Protocol endpoints so AI agents can call them as tools; the MCP Gateway (Beta) federates third-party and internal MCP servers behind a single OAuth 2.0 endpoint; and the AI Gateway governs LLM traffic with provider failover, semantic caching, prompt-injection detection, and per-team budgets. Around this core, named feature modules — Developer Portal, API Monetization, Authentication, API Key Management, Rate Limiting, Observability, Security, Backends, Caching, Governance, GitOps, Multi-Cloud, OpenAPI, Programmable (TypeScript policies), and Environments — are sold as part of the same platform, sharing one policy engine, one audit log, and one GitOps deploy pipeline (SOC 2 Type II audited; GDPR-aligned; up to 99.999% SLA on Enterprise).
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Zuplo API Gateway Edge-native, multi-cloud API gateway that runs every route through a pipeline of policies (auth, rate limits, validation, transformation) at 300+ edge locations with sub-50ms latency and a 99.99% uptime SLA. Foundation layer for the AI Gateway, MCP Gateway, and MCP Server.
- Zuplo AI Gateway Governs LLM traffic on the same policy engine as the API Gateway: routes across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Mistral with automatic failover, semantic caching by vector similarity, prompt-injection and secret-masking outbound policies, and hierarchical per-team dollar/token budgets. Drop-in compatible with the OpenAI SDK via a baseURL swap.
- Zuplo MCP Server Turns existing OpenAPI routes into a Streamable-HTTP MCP server at the edge so AI agents can call them as tools, resources, or prompts. Mark OpenAPI operations with x-zuplo-route.mcp and the same auth, rate limits, and audit-log policies apply; custom TypeScript tools can compose other gateway routes via context.invokeRoute(). Includes OpenAI Apps SDK support for ChatGPT widget rendering via the ZuploMcpSdk class.
- Zuplo MCP Gateway (Beta) Federates one or more remote MCP servers (Stripe, Linear, Notion, GitHub, Atlassian, Cloudflare, Vercel, PayPal, Sentry, Asana, Intercom, Webflow, and any user-defined upstream) behind a single OAuth 2.0-protected endpoint. Supports dynamic client registration (RFC 7591), PKCE S256, RFC 8707 per-virtual-server token scoping, capability curation per team, encrypted upstream credentials, and structured observability events.
Companies that use Zuplo
Customer profileNamed customers8 records
Segments6 records
Ideal customer profiles6 records
Zuplo technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration37 records
AI capability10 records
Feature10 records
Zuplo partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
37 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship reference customer / case-study partner, flagship strategic partner, core platform integration, standard integration and flagship ai partner.
- AccuWeatherflagship reference customer / case-study partnerAccuWeather partnered with Akamai and Zuplo to modernize its developer portal and API management infrastructure, leveraging Zuplo for API gateway, management, security, and monetization capabilities. AccuWeather's Chief Data and Science Officer, Chris Patti, publicly endorsed the partnership, and the company is featured prominently across Zuplo's marketing as a flagship customer serving 1B+ end users.
- Akamai Technologiesflagship strategic partnerAkamai and Zuplo announced a strategic partnership on 2025-12-02 combining Akamai's globally distributed edge platform with Zuplo's developer-first API gateway. The two companies jointly delivered the redesigned AccuWeather developer portal with unified analytics, access control, and revenue tracking, and offer a managed dedicated Akamai deployment option for AI-powered applications.
- Stripecore platform integrationStripe is the embedded payment provider behind Zuplo's API monetization feature. Zuplo's developer portal supports tiered subscription plans and usage-based billing with Stripe-backed checkout, so customers can monetize their APIs without standing up separate billing infrastructure.
- GitHubcore platform integrationGitHub is a first-class federated upstream MCP server supported out of the box in the MCP Gateway, and Zuplo's GitOps workflow is built around native GitHub repository integration for deployment and PR preview environments.
- Linearstandard integrationLinear is one of the pre-built upstream MCP servers available in the MCP Gateway Library, with capability filters, OAuth translation, and observability for tools/list_issues, get_issue, etc.
- Notionstandard integrationNotion is one of the pre-built upstream MCP servers supported by the MCP Gateway, with example capability 'notion-fetch' surfaced in the observability dashboard.
- Atlassianstandard integrationAtlassian is one of the pre-built upstream MCP servers available in the MCP Gateway Library for federating Jira/Confluence MCP tools behind Zuplo.
- Cloudflarestandard integrationCloudflare is listed in the MCP Gateway Library as a federated upstream MCP server; an example 'cloudflare-observability-v1' virtual server appears in the top-MCP dashboard.
- Vercelstandard integrationVercel is one of the pre-built upstream MCP servers available in the MCP Gateway Library.
- PayPalstandard integrationPayPal is listed as an upstream MCP server available in the MCP Gateway Library.
- Sentrystandard integrationSentry is listed as an upstream MCP server available in the MCP Gateway Library.
- Asanastandard integrationAsana is listed as an upstream MCP server available in the MCP Gateway Library.
- Intercomstandard integrationIntercom is listed as an upstream MCP server available in the MCP Gateway Library.
- Webflowstandard integrationWebflow is listed as an upstream MCP server available in the MCP Gateway Library.
- OpenAIcore platform integrationOpenAI is a primary routing target in the AI Gateway — Zuplo supports OpenAI-compatible client SDKs (drop-in baseURL swap) and declarative model selection via zuplo.json and OpenAPI extensions for routes.
- Anthropiccore platform integrationAnthropic is a first-class multi-provider target in the AI Gateway (e.g., openai/gpt-4o → anthropic/claude failover) and the original developer of the Model Context Protocol that Zuplo's MCP Server and MCP Gateway implementations are built around.
- Google (Gemini)core platform integrationGoogle Gemini is a multi-provider routing target in Zuplo's AI Gateway, alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral.
- Mistral AIstandard integrationMistral is one of the supported multi-provider routing targets in Zuplo's AI Gateway.
- Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD)core platform integrationMicrosoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) is a first-class enterprise identity integration: SAML SSO + SCIM provisioning work directly with Entra ID, and Zuplo's OpenID JWT policy validates Entra ID tokens at the edge.
- Auth0standard integrationAuth0 is a documented identity provider for Zuplo's MCP OAuth setup, with first-class preset support in the MCP Gateway and Okta/Auth0/any-OIDC JWT inbound policies.
- Oktastandard integrationOkta is a documented identity provider for MCP OAuth authentication on Zuplo, with a dedicated Okta JWT inbound policy and step-by-step Auth Server setup guide.
- AWS (Lambda, Cognito)core platform integrationZuplo integrates with AWS as a deployment target (managed dedicated single-tenant on AWS), as an identity provider (AWS Cognito JWT Auth Policy), and as a backend target (routes forward to Lambda function URLs, ALB, ECS, EKS, EC2).
- Azure (Microsoft Entra ID)core platform integrationMicrosoft Entra ID is supported as an enterprise identity provider for SAML SSO + SCIM provisioning, and Azure is offered as a managed-dedicated single-tenant deployment cloud.
- Google Cloud (GCP)standard integrationGCP is offered as a managed-dedicated single-tenant deployment option for Zuplo Enterprise customers.
- Datadogstandard integrationDatadog is one of Zuplo's supported log-shipping and metrics destinations; structured logs and OTel-compatible metrics can be piped into Datadog for rate-limit and MCP observability.
- New Relicstandard integrationNew Relic is supported as both a log-shipping and metrics destination via Zuplo's logging and metrics plugins.
- Splunkstandard integrationSplunk is one of Zuplo's supported log-shipping destinations for observability and audit-log pipelines.
- Galileostandard integrationGalileo is one of Zuplo's named AI observability destinations, streaming LLM call traces alongside MCP tool invocations.
- Comet (Opik)standard integrationComet Opik is one of Zuplo's named AI observability destinations for LLM and agent traces.
- Dynatracestandard integrationDynatrace is one of Zuplo's supported log-shipping and metrics-plugin destinations.
- AWS CloudWatchstandard integrationAWS CloudWatch is listed as a supported log-shipping destination for Zuplo observability pipelines.
- Google Cloud Loggingstandard integrationGoogle Cloud Logging is listed as a supported log-shipping destination for Zuplo observability pipelines.
- Lokistandard integrationLoki is listed as a supported log-shipping destination for Zuplo observability pipelines.
- Sumo Logicstandard integrationSumo Logic is listed as a supported log-shipping destination for Zuplo observability pipelines.
- VMware Log Insightstandard integrationVMware Log Insight is listed as a supported log-shipping destination for Zuplo observability pipelines.
- OpenAI (Apps SDK)flagship ai partnerZuplo's MCP Server provides built-in support for the OpenAI Apps SDK through tools, resources, and the ZuploMcpSdk class, allowing developers to expose applications to ChatGPT via MCP. The integration is co-developed with OpenAI's specification.
- Zudokustandard integrationZudoku is the open-source documentation framework that powers Zuplo's developer portal and public docs site (attribution: 'powered by Zudoku').
Scale indicators8 records
Recent moves2 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Zuplo competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Kong: Kong is the most direct competitor in the API gateway space, offering an open-core (Kong Gateway) and enterprise (Kong Konnect) platform with similar routing, auth, rate-limiting, and developer-portal functionality. Zuplo explicitly targets Kong switchers with dedicated migration playbooks and comparison pages.
- Tyk: Tyk is an open-source API gateway (Go-based) with a managed cloud offering and developer portal. It is a comparable direct competitor for engineering teams evaluating lightweight, programmable API management alternatives to Kong and the hyperscalers.
- Gravitee: Gravitee is an open-source API management platform with event-native API and federation capabilities. It overlaps with Zuplo on API gateway, developer portal, and policy-driven governance for modern microservices and event-driven workloads.
- Solo.io (Gloo Gateway): Solo.io's Gloo Gateway is an API gateway and service mesh built on Envoy, popular with Kubernetes-native enterprises. It competes with Zuplo in programmable, cloud-native API management for microservices and AI workloads.
Broad incumbents
- Apigee (Google Cloud): Apigee is Google's full-lifecycle API management platform, often sold alongside Google Cloud services. Zuplo positions itself as a simpler, multi-cloud alternative and runs direct comparison pages against Apigee for engineering teams seeking lower operational complexity.
- AWS API Gateway: AWS API Gateway is the hyperscaler-default REST and WebSocket gateway bundled into AWS accounts. Zuplo's multi-cloud, edge-native architecture and unified API/MCP/AI control plane target teams migrating off AWS's fragmented Lambda + Cognito + CloudFormation toolchain.
- Azure API Management: Azure API Management is Microsoft's cloud-native gateway offering with policy-based traffic governance and a developer portal. Zuplo competes for Azure customers who want multi-cloud flexibility, faster time-to-deploy, and a single control plane for API, MCP, and AI traffic.
- MuleSoft (Salesforce): MuleSoft is an enterprise integration and API management platform owned by Salesforce, focused on large-scale hybrid integrations and API governance. Zuplo targets MuleSoft replacement scenarios with developer-first, edge-native, GitOps workflows.
Emerging players
- Cloudflare API Gateway: Cloudflare's API Gateway (built on its global network) is an emerging offering that competes on edge-native API management. It is comparable to Zuplo on edge performance and global reach, but is bundled into a much broader Cloudflare developer platform.
- Moesif: Moesif provides API observability, monetization, and usage analytics for APIs and LLM applications. It overlaps with Zuplo's API monetization and observability modules and is a credible emerging competitor in API/AI usage analytics.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Zuplo social profiles
Digital presenceZuplo compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance3 records
Zuplo financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Zuplo leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Zuplo funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors3 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Zuplo M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Zuplo
What does Zuplo do?
Zuplo provides a unified, edge-native API management platform that runs API Gateway, MCP Gateway, and AI Gateway workloads on a single programmable control plane. It delivers routing, authentication, rate limiting, validation, monetization, and audit-log policies across 300+ global edge locations, with native support for OpenAPI-driven configuration, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and multi-provider LLM traffic governance. Customers use it to secure, monetize, and govern APIs, MCP servers, and AI traffic from one deployment.
Is Zuplo a public or private company?
Zuplo is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Zuplo founded?
Zuplo was founded in 2021. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Zuplo based?
Zuplo is headquartered in Seattle, United States, in the North America region.
How does Zuplo make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Free tier self-serve subscription is the primary driver. The others are usage-based platform subscription, enterprise managed-dedicated contracts and customer-side API monetization (Zuplo-powered billing).
Who are Zuplo's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Kong, Tyk, Gravitee and Solo.io (Gloo Gateway). Broad incumbents are Apigee (Google Cloud), AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management and MuleSoft (Salesforce). Emerging players are Cloudflare API Gateway and Moesif.
Does Zuplo have an API?
Yes. Zuplo exposes developer-facing HTTP/REST APIs (e.g., the API Key Management API at https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/api-key-api) for programmatically managing API consumers, keys, plans, and other platform resources. The platform also offers a Zuplo CLI for local development and deploys from GitHub via a GitOps workflow. Policies are authored in TypeScript against the @zuplo/runtime package. The platform additionally publishes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server handler and MCP Gateway so AI agents and MCP clients (Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Cursor, etc.) can discover and invoke routes as MCP tools, prompts, or resources via OAuth 2.0 with PKCE. OpenAPI specs are the source of truth for routing configuration. Developer documentation is at zuplo.com/docs.
What industry is Zuplo in?
Zuplo's product category is API Management Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAFAMAD, SDN & Controller-Based Management (Campus/DC Fabrics). Its NAICS code is 54151 and its SIC code is 7372.