Tetrate Company Profile

Background

Founded in 2018, Tetrate is a technology company specializing in service mesh solutions that facilitate the management of complex, distributed applications across hybrid and multicloud environments. The company's mission is to simplify application networking and security, enabling enterprises to adopt modern cloud-native architectures seamlessly. Tetrate's flagship product, Tetrate Service Bridge, is built upon open-source projects like Istio and Envoy, providing a comprehensive platform for application connectivity, security, observability, and reliability.

Key Strategic Focus

Tetrate's strategic focus centers on delivering enterprise-grade service mesh solutions that address the challenges of application modernization and cloud adoption. The company specializes in:

Application Connectivity and Security: Ensuring secure and efficient communication between microservices across diverse environments.

Hybrid and Multicloud Support: Providing consistent management and observability across on-premises and cloud infrastructures.

Zero Trust Architecture: Implementing security models that require strict verification for every access request, enhancing overall system security.

Tetrate primarily targets large enterprises undergoing digital transformation, including sectors such as financial services, telecommunications, retail, media, and government organizations.

Financials and Funding

Since its inception, Tetrate has secured a total of $52.5 million in funding:

Series A (March 2019): Raised $12.5 million led by Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from 8VC, Intel Capital, Rain Capital, and Samsung NEXT.

Series B (March 2021): Secured $40 million led by Sapphire Ventures, with additional investments from Scale Venture Partners, NTTVC, and existing investors.

The capital has been utilized to enhance product development, particularly Tetrate Service Bridge, and to expand go-to-market activities in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Technological Platform and Innovation

Tetrate's technological innovation is rooted in its contributions to and extensions of open-source projects:

Istio and Envoy: Tetrate's products are built upon these projects, providing a robust foundation for service mesh solutions.

Tetrate Service Bridge: An enterprise-ready service mesh platform designed for multi-cluster, multitenancy, and multi-cloud deployments, offering consistent observability, runtime security, and traffic management.

Open Source Leadership: Tetrate remains a top contributor to the Istio and Envoy Proxy projects, demonstrating its commitment to the open-source community.

Leadership Team

Varun Talwar: Co-founder and CEO, co-creator of Istio and gRPC, with a background at Google.

Jeyappragash (JJ) Jeyakeerthi: Co-founder, previously led Twitter’s Cloud Infrastructure Management Platform.

David Wang: Head of Product, recognized for his contributions to product development and customer partnership models.

Leadership Changes

In March 2021, Jai Das, President and Partner at Sapphire Ventures, joined Tetrate’s Board of Directors, bringing valuable experience to support the company's growth.

Competitor Profile

Market Insights and Dynamics

The service mesh market is experiencing significant growth, driven by the increasing adoption of microservices architectures and the need for secure, efficient application networking across hybrid and multicloud environments. Enterprises are seeking solutions that offer comprehensive observability, security, and traffic management to support their digital transformation initiatives.

Competitor Analysis

Key competitors in the service mesh space include:

Buoyant: Provider of open-source software designed to enhance cloud-native software performance, scalability, reliability, and security.

Solo.io: Offers open-source interface projects aimed at integrating traditional and cloud-native applications, facilitating enterprise migration to new architectures.

Aspen Mesh: Provides enterprise service mesh solutions with a focus on security and observability.

Kong: Delivers API management and service mesh solutions to support modern application architectures.

These competitors focus on various aspects of service mesh technology, including API management, security, and integration capabilities.

Strategic Collaborations and Partnerships

Tetrate has established significant collaborations to enhance its market position and innovation capacity:

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD): Partnered to secure and operate Platform One with Istio, providing expertise, training, and production support for critical systems.

FICO: Utilized Tetrate's solutions to achieve end-to-end encryption and PCI compliance for AWS EKS workloads, improving operational efficiency.

Square: Relies on Tetrate's technologies for reliability in load distribution, service discovery, and routing, with industry-leading security features.

Operational Insights

Tetrate's strategic considerations include:

Market Position: Leveraging its open-source leadership and enterprise-grade solutions to differentiate from competitors.

Competitive Advantages: Offering a cloud-agnostic, hybrid cloud application networking platform with advanced capabilities, supported by a team of industry pioneers.