Kong Inc Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

Kong Inc generated an estimated $146.1M in annual revenue in 2024.

Kong Inc surpassed $10 million in ARR as of the June 2020 interview, up from approximately $3 million in ARR the prior year, representing roughly a 233% increase year over year. Marietti told Latka the company grew five times from 2017 to 2018 and was targeting a tripling of the business by the end of fiscal year 2020, which ends January 31. He declined to disclose the specific monthly milestone at which the company would cross $2 million in monthly recurring revenue.

Kong Inc reported more than 130 large enterprise customers as of June 2020, described by Marietti as Global 5000 accounts. Enterprise contracts are structured as annual subscriptions starting at six figures. Pricing is based on three dimensions: number of users on the platform, volume of API requests passing through the platform, and number of microservices or services connected. Marietti indicated microservices-based pricing was the newest dimension and expected to be the most powerful expansion lever over time.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was the company's first enterprise customer, signing in late 2016. Approximately 95% of new bookings in a typical period came from new logos rather than expansions, reflecting the early stage of the customer base. Thirty percent of deals were paid in cash upfront, and some contracts extended to multi-year terms of up to three years.

Kong Inc operates an open-core model in which the free Kong API Gateway drives top-of-funnel adoption and the commercial enterprise platform monetizes that installed base. As of June 2020, the company reported 100 million total open-source downloads and 800,000 trackable active monthly instances. The time from open-sourcing the gateway to the first commercial customer call was five months, and the first contract was signed within 30 days of that call.

Gross margin stood at 85% as of mid-2020. Net dollar retention over the trailing twelve months was 133%, with the most recent quarter reaching 195% due to two large customer expansions. Gross revenue churn over the trailing twelve months averaged below 7%, and the most recent quarter recorded 0% gross revenue churn. Approximately 95% of new bookings in a typical quarter came from new logos. The fully weighted customer acquisition cost payback period was approximately 12 months, meaning the company was spending roughly one dollar to acquire each new dollar of ARR. Monthly burn rate was below $1 million. The company had 15 quota-carrying sales representatives as of mid-2020, with a six-month ramp period and a quota attainment target of four to five times base compensation. Sales representatives were primarily closing inbound leads generated through organic search and open-source adoption rather than outbound prospecting.

Kong Inc employed approximately 140 people globally as of June 2020, up from a headcount of 15 to 20 during the Mashape years. Of the 140 total employees, 15 were quota-carrying sales representatives, many of whom had been hired within the prior three months and had not yet completed their six-month ramp period.