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Ngrok provides an ingress-as-a-service platform, delivering secure, unified access to applications and services by abstracting complex network infrastructure. It consolidates diverse components like firewalls, load balancers, and API gateways into a single solution for modern software delivery. This empowers developers to expose local environments, test webhooks, and secure production applications.
Alan Shreve founded ngrok, conceptualizing the idea while a software developer at Twilio. He launched ngrok as an open-source project, bootstrapping the company for seven years using personal investment. Its early growth came from organic developer adoption and widespread integration into developer evangelism, establishing it as a trusted ecosystem tool.
Millions of developers utilize ngrok for streamlined application delivery and enhanced security. The company's vision is to accelerate internet innovation by simplifying infrastructure complexities through a unified, developer-centric platform. It empowers teams to efficiently deploy applications, making advanced networking capabilities broadly accessible.
ngrok has raised $50.0M across 1 funding round.
ngrok has raised $50.0M in total across 1 funding round.
ngrok is a technology company that provides a unified ingress platform, enabling developers to securely expose any application, device, or service to the global internet in seconds with minimal code.[1][5][9] It wraps complex networking tasks like authentication, load balancing, remote management, and firewalls into a programmable component, serving over 7 million developers and 30,000 paying customers including Twilio, GitHub, Zendesk, and Databricks.[1][5][7] Originally a developer tool for local testing like webhook debugging, ngrok has evolved into production-grade infrastructure, simplifying secure traffic delivery between apps and the internet while boosting developer productivity.[2][3][5]
The platform solves core pain points in software delivery: manual setup of proxies, VPNs, load balancers, and firewalls, which slow down deployment.[7][9] ngrok targets developers and enterprises building modern apps across clouds, serverless, data centers, or IoT, with strong growth including doubled revenue and tripled headcount before its 2022 funding.[3][7]
ngrok was founded by Alan Shreve, a software engineer and entrepreneur, who created the initial open-source version in 2013 (or 2015 per some accounts) while working at Twilio.[3][5][6] Frustrated by the cumbersome process of exposing local web servers to the internet for testing—such as port forwarding through firewalls—Shreve built a simple tool to generate a public URL for services on a laptop, speeding up webhook testing and developer workflows.[2][4][5][6]
Shreve bootstrapped ngrok as an open-source project for seven years, amassing over 6 million developer sign-ups and massive traction through user feature requests, without seeking venture capital initially.[3][5][9] A pivotal shift came around 2021-2022 as demand surged for production use beyond dev tools, leading to a $50 million Series A in December 2022—ngrok's first outside funding—from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue.[3][5][7][10] This funded expansion into enterprise-grade features, with Peter Shafton later joining as CTO, bringing networking expertise from Twilio.[4]
ngrok stands out in the crowded networking space through its developer-first design and seamless integration:
ngrok rides the wave of developer velocity and cloud-native acceleration, where teams face pressure to ship apps faster amid exploding edge computing, serverless, IoT, and API-driven architectures.[2][3][7] Its timing aligns perfectly with post-pandemic remote work and DevOps shifts, reducing infra friction that plagues legacy networking—manual proxies slow releases by days, while ngrok cuts it to seconds.[7][9]
Market forces like rising cyber threats and multi-cloud complexity favor ngrok's secure, automated ingress, collapsing disparate tools into one layer for consistent delivery anywhere.[8][9] It influences the ecosystem by democratizing production infrastructure: over 5-7 million devs at firms like Zendesk and Databricks rely on it, pushing standards for self-serve networking and inspiring similar API-first tools.[1][5][7] As internet innovation paces up, ngrok shrinks barriers, enabling faster experimentation and safer global exposure.[3]
ngrok's trajectory points to dominance in unified ingress-as-a-service, expanding from dev darling to enterprise staple with hires fueling product velocity and market push post-2022 funding.[3][7][10] Trends like AI-driven apps, edge AI, and zero-trust security will amplify demand for its effortless, secure connectivity—expect deeper integrations with serverless giants and IoT surges.[1][3][9]
Its influence could evolve into the default "app front door" for next-gen software, potentially through acquisitions or IPO as revenue scales further, always prioritizing dev delight amid fierce competition from Cloudflare or Tailscale.[5][7] From a bootstrapped open-source hack to $50M-backed powerhouse, ngrok proves simplifying the internet's plumbing unlocks massive scale—watch it redefine how apps meet the world.
ngrok has raised $50.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $50.0M Series A in December 2022.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 1, 2022 | $50M Series A | Lightspeed Venture Partners | Balderton Capital, BLU Venture Investors, Coatue, Cyberstarts VC, Decibel Partners, Lightspeed India Partners, Rain Capital, Sequoia Capital, Sweater Ventures, Chris Schagen, Girish Mathrubootham, Jonathan Boutelle, Miten Mehta, Oliver Friedrichs | Announced |
ngrok has raised $50.0M in total across 1 funding round.
ngrok's investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Balderton Capital, Blu Venture Investors, Coatue, Cyberstarts VC, Decibel Partners, Lightspeed India Partners, Rain Capital, Sequoia Capital, Sweater Ventures, Chris Schagen, Girish Mathrubootham.
