SEP has led a $35M growth equity investment in Tyk, a London-based global tech company.  

Tyk’s innovative API management solution helps to build mission-critical systems in highly regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, and government and is used by some of the world’s largest enterprises such as Societe Generale, Starbucks and Domino’s.

With businesses reinventing the way they work, software is now built across multiple clouds, locations, and teams. APIs are the backbone of this, and Tyk’s technology enables modern engineering teams to monitor, secure and manage all their organisation’s APIs in a single, functionally rich platform.  

The investment will accelerate development of Tyk’s leading independent, open-source API and service management platform. The company aims to double headcount within the next 12 months with plans to increase its UK team and expand its presence in the US to the West Coast, and open new offices in Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.

Martin Buhr, CEO and co-founder of Tyk, said: “APIs are everywhere. The modern enterprise is at its core an API company, and those that want to survive are expanding their API ecosystems rapidly. With that growth comes an increasing need to manage, monitor and secure that complexity.  

“At Tyk, we make that easy,” Buhr continued. “We’re a progressive, global, remote-first, open-source company that puts our customers at the heart of everything we do, while pushing the envelope with continued market-leading innovation. That makes us an ideal partner for enterprises that are transitioning into, or levelling-up their API game.”

Martin Brennan, Director at SEP said: “Martin and James have built a world-class team and the addition of this new capital will enable Tyk to accelerate the growth of its API management platform, particularly around the GraphQL focused Universal Data Graph product that launched earlier this year. We are pleased to be supporting the team to achieve their global ambitions.”  Keith Davidson, Partner at SEP, joins the Tyk board as a non-executive director.

“We received interest from a number of investors and are delighted to be partnering with SEP for the next stage of our growth,” said James Hirst, COO and co-founder of Tyk. “The funds will be used to continue disrupting the software industry by providing innovative solutions that empower our clients’ teams and put developers firmly in the driving seat when it comes to building and managing new products and services. Only a small number of enterprises have started their API management journey, and we know the sector has huge potential for growth and we’re excited for what the next few years will bring.”

Since its founding in 2014, Tyk has grown to over 100 people, with offices in London, Singapore, and Atlanta. The remote-first organisation has employees based in over 26 countries across 6 continents and allows staff to work from wherever they want, when they want.  

The SEP investment was led by Keith Davidson, Martin Brennan and Taylor Rampton.

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