Boomi Acquires Mashery IP, APIIDA, Builds AI, API Capabilities

BOOMI WORLD — Boomi built out its API management and AI agent strategy with two acquisitions and two additions to its platforms at Boomi World in Denver.

Boomi picked up APIIDA and Mashery’s API management business from Cloud Software Group, and launched Boomi DataHub and Agent Garden. The acquisitions bring API management gateways and APIIDA adds an API Control Plane. Boomi DataHub and Agent Garden are new pieces of the Boomi Enterprise Platform.

“Throughout this year and next year we’ll introduce capabilities that allow you to move data seamlessly at high scale, at high volume, in and out of your data lakes and warehouses,” Boomi CEO Steve Lucas said. “We've acquired two companies today to expand our API management capability. And that’s just the beginning. We haven’t really gotten to AI yet.”

Boomi acquired Mashery’s API management technology, employees and customers. It could accelerate Boomi’s progress in building an enterprise-grade API management gateway.

Lucas said APIIDA’s technology will allow Boomi to create a universal control plane to help enterprises discover, govern and provision APIs from one place. That includes APIs managed through gateways from other vendors. He said APIIDA’s federated management can be used beyond APIs, which makes it a fit for AI agents.

Related:Boomi CEO Lucas: There Will Be AI Agents, by the Thousands

The acquisitions will help Boomi’s primary function of tying together applications, databases and APIs. They will also accelerate the platform integration specialist's initiative to build AI agents that orchestrate and automate the process.

The Boomi DataHub is a data access layer for managing and integrating data and pipelines to help standardize it for AI and analytics. Agent Garden is a framework for building agents that integrate across Boomi’s platform. The first set of agents are designed by Boomi. The second set will be third-party agents, and the third set will be agents built by Boomi customers. Customers and partners can integrate their AI agents into the Boomi platform through APIs or Boomi GPT.

“There is a moment coming where we will be surrounded by AI,” Lucas said. “It’s just a matter of time, and I do not believe it will be measured in decades. I believe it’s in single-digit years.”

Boomi CTO Matt McLarty said the Boomi World acquisitions can help tame application sprawl.

Boomi's Matt McLarty

“I think in the API management space, we've had a good run,” he said. “But we’ve got this API sprawl all over the place because it’s been 15 years of just APIs. So we need a new brand of solutions. We need more federated management to deal with the fact that in an enterprise setting, there's lots of different types of technologies. That's exactly why you need a control plane.”

Agent Garden Sprouts at Boomi World

The first four Boomi agents for the Agent Garden are:

“All of this becomes part of the Boomi Enterprise Platform. When I say Boomi Enterprise Platform, I mean a platform spanning spanning API management, integration and automation, and data management," said McLarty.

Jeff Lischett, Tropicana’s global CIO, said his company relied heavily on Boomi’s EDI and platform integration capabilities after spinning out from PepsiCo two years ago. Lischett said he is looking forward to more innovation around AI.

“After building, now we’re on to optimizing,” he said. “We look to Boomi for innovation with AI capabilities for gaining more proactive monitoring. We’re hoping to optimize our integration models and API connectivity as we continue to invest and grow.”

Rob Vatter, EVP of enterprise platform services for Boomi partner Cognizant, an IT services company, said he welcomed the Boomi acquisitions.

Cognizant's Rob Vatter

“People are going to see real value, particularly around the control panel and API management,” Vatter said in an interview after the keynote. “With so many different integration technologies and APIs out there, it’s really important to have a control panel to get your hands around it. The API management is also important, particularly for registering APIs and agents. That’s going to be more important than we know right now as we go into this new world.”

Vatter pointed out how Salesforce with MuleSoft, SAP with BDT, Oracle with Fusion, and Workday with Extend all do integrations, but only for their platforms.

Lucas said Boomi will continue to grow its platform organically and inorganically.

“We will do more acquisitions,” he said, identifying ETL/ELT as one area he wants to beef up.