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Building a New Category in Enterprise Middleware: PolyAPI’s Developer-First Approach

Enterprise middleware is a $30B+ market dominated by low-code platforms promising simple, drag-and-drop integration. But after 12 years building integration platforms at Mulesoft, Oracle, and Google, Darko Vukovic saw a critical gap: enterprises were rejecting these solutions in favor of building their own platforms internally.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Darko shared how PolyAPI is creating a new category between traditional integration platforms and custom development, raising $5M to challenge conventional wisdom about enterprise connectivity.

The Problem with Low-Code Promises

Traditional integration platforms market themselves as simple solutions that anyone can use. “They’ve been largely branded as being low code, no code, drag and drop, you know, super easy. You just grab a couple of connectors, you draw a couple lines between them, and voila, you have your integration,” Darko explains.

But this promise falls apart for enterprise-scale integrations. “The reality is that’s just not how enterprise integrations work,” says Darko. “The big ones, the hairy ones, the stuff that carries millions if not billions of transactions, that stuff needs to be built much more robust way.”

This gap has forced many enterprises to build their own integration platforms internally. Darko discovered entire teams dedicated to building and maintaining custom middleware solutions – a clear sign of unmet market needs.

A Developer-First Alternative

Instead of following the low-code trend, PolyAPI took a controversial approach: embrace native code development. “What that means is that you can use native languages such as TypeScript, Python, Java, C Sharp to actually write the integration logic,” Darko explains.

This decision positioned PolyAPI to capture enterprises that had rejected traditional vendors’ limitations. “Many customers use Salesforce as a CRM, but every customer’s Salesforce CRM is going to be different,” notes Darko. Native code development gives teams the flexibility to handle these customizations without compromise.

Building Enterprise Credibility

Rather than hiding their product behind NDAs, PolyAPI took an unconventional approach to early marketing: radical transparency. “We think that our domain and our product set is just so hard to copy and replicate. So we were always publishing everything we’re doing to a pretty high degree of detail without giving away the magic sauce,” says Darko.

Their go-to-market strategy evolved through careful stages: “At first it was soliciting feedback on the idea, then it transitioned into soliciting people that might be interested in being alpha testers. And from alpha testers it transitioned into beta testers.”

This methodical approach helped overcome enterprise buyers’ skepticism about young startups. As Darko notes, “These buyers are savvy, they could see right through that. They know you can’t deliver a product in time that they’ll need it.”

Finding the Right Investors

PolyAPI’s unconventional approach initially faced skepticism from investors. Out of 20 early conversations with VCs, 19 passed. But one investor immediately understood the opportunity: Mulesoft founder Ross Mason.

“That kind of signal is really important because the one person who deeply understands the space was super excited to invest,” Darko reflects. This validation helped PolyAPI stay confident in their vision despite initial resistance.

The Road Ahead

Today, PolyAPI has 10 enterprise customers in production and is targeting 25-30 more in their next wave. Their vision extends beyond just integration – they aim to become the foundation for enterprise connectivity in an AI-driven future.

The company’s journey shows that sometimes the best enterprise products emerge from rejecting industry trends rather than following them. By focusing on developers’ real needs rather than low-code promises, PolyAPI is creating a new category in enterprise middleware that embraces rather than abstracts away complexity.