Postman Acquires Orbit To Help Developers & Enterprises Easily Deploy APIs

Enterprise tech startup Postman has acquired community-focussed SaaS platform Orbit for an undisclosed amount. 

The announcement was made by Postman cofounder and CEO Abhinav Asthana in a post on X. He wrote, “We are announcing today that Postman has acquired Orbit to scale our Public API Network to the next level. Excited to welcome the Orbit team to Postman!”

Postman plans to deploy Orbit’s capabilities and distribution channels to grow the former’s API offerings. The two will also leverage synergies in terms of tech stack and teams to scale up existing offerings.

The Orbit team will now integrate its community features into the Postman Public API Network to enable publishers and consumers to collaborate actively, said Postman in a statement. This, in turn, will enable API distributors to grow their communities, increase usage of their APIs, and get feedback directly from users on the network. 

“As we expand the capabilities of the Postman API Network, it will become a primary channel for growth and distribution for API builders. And for developers, it’ll be the first place they turn to for finding, evaluating, and deploying APIs. Bringing in the Orbit team is an important step on that journey,” said CEO Asthana.

Commenting on the acquisition, Orbit cofounder and CEO Patrick Woods said,”After getting to know the Postman team and platform, we realized that Postman is the single biggest developer community-building opportunity on the planet right now, so naturally it’s been exciting to join forces”.

Founded in 2014, Postman is an enterprise tech platform that helps companies iterate on API development and extend their API workflows for large-scale initiatives. Simply put, it helps business teams stay updated with API changes across their company while product managers build API products to share with partners.

Postman claims that its products are used by more than 3 Cr developers and 5 Lakh organisations globally. Backed by names such as Battery Ventures, Coatue, CRV, Insight Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners, Postman last raised $225 Mn in a 2021 funding round that pegged the SaaS startup at a mammoth $5.6 Bn.

On the other hand, Orbit, founded in 2019 by Woods, helps developer companies manage and grow their communities across forums and social media channels by offering insights, automations, and engagement capabilities.

Orbit is backed by the likes of names such as Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Heavybit, and many others.

This development comes at a time when India continues to emerge as a significant player in the global SaaS space. Buoyed by high quality and not-so-expensive talent pool, Indian enterprise tech platforms are making global products out of India, 

As a result, the space continues to see healthy capital inflow even as funding winter has dried up capital for the entire Indian startup ecosystem. While Indian SaaS startups have raised $15 Bn+ since 2014, the space bagged $1.3 Bn across 157 deals in 2023, including four mega deals ($100 Mn+ round).

As per a report, the Indian SaaS market was pegged at $13 Bn in 2022 and is projected to soar to a size of $25 Bn by 2025.