Validika’s API-First Growth Strategy: Building a Platform Business in the Battery Analytics Space
Most startups try to own the entire customer experience. But in complex technical markets, being a crucial part of someone else’s solution can be more powerful than being a standalone product. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Validika Diagnostics founder Claudius Jehle revealed how their API-first strategy turned battery analytics into a scalable platform business.
The Strategic Insight Behind API-First
Validika’s approach was driven by a fundamental insight about their market: “We think that the battery itself will become a commodity, and thus information around the battery must become a commodity,” Claudius explains. This meant battery information needed to be both affordable and easily accessible through existing channels.
This insight led to a crucial strategic decision: “We early on decided the software that we’re developing must be integratable into existing fleet management systems, into existing processes in the utility company.” Rather than building a standalone platform, they would become an essential component of other systems.
Building for Integration
This strategy required specific technical choices. “Early on we decided tech wise to focus on APIs, well documented API and guidelines for partners to integrate our insights that we deliver into their product,” Claudius notes. By focusing on making their technology easily embeddable, they could reach users through interfaces they were already using.
The goal was to make battery analytics as accessible as possible: “It must be easy for any stakeholder interested in his or her, in the particular information around battery that they want to know to get this information as quickly as possible.”
The Platform Model Trade-offs
This approach comes with clear challenges. “Very bluntly speaking, you’re at the mercy of your reseller. If they are big, you have to embed yourself into them,” Claudius acknowledges. “You’re not on the front line speaking to the beneficiary or the user. They are always in between you.”
However, these trade-offs are balanced against significant benefits: “This can be a great multiplier. But on the other hand, yeah, you give away a bit of control and margin.” By integrating with existing systems, Validika could reach more users faster than through direct sales.
Becoming a Building Block
Rather than trying to be a vertical solution, Validika positioned themselves as a crucial building block across multiple industries. As Claudius explains, “We are a building block, API based building block. We are almost an SDK or software developer kit, if you will, for a huge amount or a huge spectrum of possible business cases that need some information around the battery.”
This approach allows them to serve diverse needs: “There are also clients that are not interested in that at all. They’re just interested in uptime every day, how much the range, how much energy can I get in or out? Then a third thing is safety. Insurance companies are interested in safety.”
Scaling Through Integration
The success of this strategy is evident in their global reach. Today, Validika monitors batteries in “containers in the desert of Texas, south of Dallas, in Arizona, and in Mexico City. We are monitoring buses in Mexico City and in the Netherlands, and in Germany, and in Sweden and Norway and in Canada.”
Their vision extends even further: “If someone wants to know something about a battery in a bus or a truck or a car or something, and they find it in the whatever tool that they have… My vision is that it is highly likely that in the background, behind the scenes that this information has been provided by our product.”
When API-First Makes Sense
Validika’s experience suggests an API-first platform strategy can be particularly powerful when:
- Your technology solves a specific problem within broader workflows
- Integration would significantly lower adoption barriers
- Channel partners can provide faster market access
- Your solution gains value from being part of existing platforms
- Being embedded in partner solutions creates strategic advantages
For technical founders, particularly those building in emerging markets, Validika’s journey offers important insights about platform business models. Sometimes, the path to building a category-leading company isn’t through owning the entire customer experience, but through becoming an essential, invisible layer in the industry’s infrastructure.