這個行業正在大爆發，但大數多人并不了解
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亞馬遜因顛覆零售業而得到了諸多贊譽，也受到了很多批評；作為云計算行業先鋒，它同樣贏得了喝彩。與此同時，亞馬遜給IT界帶來的巨變催生出了一個全新業務類別，那就是應用程序編程接口（API）提供商。雖然此項業務仍然處在發展階段，但它已經開始為一些有先見之明的投資者帶來了收益。 這家大型科技企業的云計算業務Amazon Web Services已經成為推動聯盟營銷和為電子商務網站賦能的途徑。而近幾年這項業務又孕育出了一個宏大愿景。亞馬遜正確地預見到通過向各種各樣的公司提供基本IT功能可以讓它大賺一筆。它是這么宣傳的：不用擔心所有那些乏味的基礎設施維保工作，也不用擔心計算、存儲或者帶寬。我們將為您處理這一切。 這個點子成了亞馬遜的主要增長動力之一，在上一財年為它貢獻了256億美元收入，增幅高達47%，而且對微軟和谷歌等亞馬遜競爭對手來說也成了一門賺錢的生意。與此同時，火爆的云計算也引發了大規模連鎖反應，從而出現了API“大爆炸”。 API是應用軟件之間的橋梁，它讓連接成為可能——就像電線上的插座，是數據流通和互動的渠道。投資管理公司D.A. Davidson & Co.的分析師瑞什·賈盧瑞爾說：“軟件正在吃掉這個世界是流傳最久的一種說法，而API正在吃掉軟件。” 對企業用戶來說，API提供商將SAP、甲骨文和IBM等提供的第一代笨重軟件包拆解開來。他們把這些軟件包變成了最簡單的“零部件”，或者說像樂高積木那樣的模塊，分別用于通信、支付、內容管理、電子簽名等方面。客戶獲得的同樣主張也讓云計算變得非常有吸引力。乏味的任務由別人承擔，這樣客戶就可以把精力集中在重要事務上。舉例來說，Uber和Lyft實現飛速增長的很大一部分原因就是他們可以通過API來導航、簽約和交易。 這實現了雙向繁榮。隨著他們服務的科技公司不斷擴張，API提供商也搭上了便車。目前，API型公司幾乎都沒有盈利，但隨著他們數據通道和工具的流行，龍頭提供商將獲得“網絡效應”，成為自身領域中的主導者和客戶首選目標。由于API提供商服務的是軟件開發商，所以他們可以在任何規模的公司內部打造追隨者群體，他們的營銷成本可以忽略，還能實現明顯的規模效益。同時，隨著他們的API得到更多的應用，這些提供商的收入也將上升。 初創公司Plaid用API將銀行賬號和金融科技應用連接在一起，比如支付軟件Venmo和投資經紀軟件Robinhood。該公司業務發展和策略負責人西瑪·甘地說：“人們經常把我們稱為水暖工。”盡管大多數消費者都沒有聽說過它的名字，但Plaid表示它的業務牽涉到美國四分之一的銀行賬戶。甘地說：“我們把臟活都干了。” |
Amazon gets lots of credit and flak for turning retail upside down; it also earns plaudits for its pioneering cloud-computing business. But in a still-unfurling development, the seismic shift that Amazon wrought in the IT world has spawned a whole new business category—providers of “APIs”—that has already begun paying off for a few prescient investors. Amazon Web Services, the tech giant’s cloud-computing business, began as a way to boost affiliate marketing and power e-commerce sites. But within a few years, the project had incubated a grander vision. Amazon bet—correctly—that it could make a killing providing basic IT functions to all kinds of businesses. The pitch: Don’t worry about all that tedious infrastructure upkeep, or about computation, storage, or bandwidth. We’ll manage it for you. The idea became one of Amazon’s primary growth drivers, contributing revenues of $25.6 billion in its most recent fiscal year and growing at a healthy 47% clip—and has become lucrative for rivals like Microsoft and Google too. But the cloud-computing boom has also generated a powerful knock-on ?effect: an API-related Big Bang. APIs, or application programming interfaces, are pieces of technology that act as bridges between software applications. APIs enable connection, like electrical outlets porting to power grids: They’re the conduits through which data flows and interacts. “There’s been this saying for the longest time that software is eating the world,” says Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co. Now, he says, “APIs are eating software.” For corporate customers, API providers are paring down the hulking software packages that characterized the first generation of enterprise tech sold by the likes of SAP, Oracle, and IBM. Purveyors of APIs reduce these packages to their simplest component parts: Lego-like modules for communications, payments, content management, electronic signatures, and more. Customers get the same proposition that made cloud computing so attractive. Someone else handles the humdrum tasks, so they can focus on what matters. Uber and Lyft, for instance, owe much of their breakneck growth to the fact that they could turn to APIs for navigation, sign-up, and transactions. The prosperity flows both ways. As the tech companies they serve expand, API providers get to hitch along for the ride. Right now, few API-oriented companies are profitable, but as their data pipes and tools catch on, the leading providers are likely to enjoy “network effects,” becoming the dominant, go-to choices in their categories. Because API providers cater to developers, they’re able to build followings inside and across organizations of all sizes, with negligible marketing costs and powerful economies of scale. And as their APIs get used more, the providers will get paid more. “People often call us plumbers,” says Sima Gandhi, who heads business development and strategy at Plaid, which uses APIs to connect bank accounts to fintech applications such as payments app Venmo and investment brokerage Robinhood. The startup claims to have hooks in one out of four bank accounts in the U.S., despite most consumers never having heard of it. “We do the dirty work,” Gandhi says. |
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由于上述API趨勢是如此之新，以至于大多數投資活動仍限于私募市場。但對有見地的投資者來說，為他們提供介入方案的上市公司越來越多。 Twilio公司（TWLO）的首席執行官杰夫·勞森曾長期供職于亞馬遜云計算部門。這家公司的大多數收入都來自通信API，后者幫助其他公司通過短信和電話和客戶聯系。這是一個增長穩定的領域，隨著自家產品的騰飛，Twilio的股價去年增長了兩倍以上。JMP Securities的分析師帕特里克·沃爾瑞文斯向打算投資估值水平較低的通信API概念股的人士推薦Bandwidth公司（BAND），因為市場“還沒有特別透徹地理解”這家電信公司的業務基本面。Twilio去年實現收入6.50億美元，股價約為收入水平的18倍；而收入2.04億美元的Bandwidth的估值僅為5倍。 API還在影響著支付過程，因為它們幫助商家、銀行和消費者進行聯系。這個市場中最成熟的API提供商是非上市公司Stripe。但股市投資者可以通過正在快速趕上來的Adyen公司（AYDEN）介入這一領域。Adyen是一家荷蘭支付處理公司，上一財年的收入規模為19.5億美元，Uber和Spotify都是它的客戶。 另一家正在崛起的企業是Okta公司（OKTA），它推出的“ID管理”技術可以讓人們擺脫麻煩的密碼。該公司的首席執行官托德·麥金農說，他們最初只銷售用于工作場所的ID產品，但他們很快就發現自己的企業客戶急需辨識用戶身份的方法。麥金農認為后一個市場的規模有可能超過源于工作場所的ID產品市場。除了原有產品，Okta現在還向Adobe和美高梅國際酒店集團等公司銷售以客戶為中心的API類產品。2017年上市以來，Okta的股價已上漲260%以上，但JMP Securities的沃爾瑞文斯最近在報告中指出，Okta的估值“剛好體現出它引人注目的增長速度”。 位于澳大利亞的企業Atlassian公司（TEAM）的業務不是提供API，而是向軟件開發商提供工具，以便后者運用其他公司的API產品。比如，它的產品Jira可以幫助編程人員和項目經理追蹤軟件開發進度和軟件漏洞等問題，另一款工具Confluence則可以幫助開發商協同編程（就像Twilio的勞森所說，如果把編程人員比作餅干加工廠的員工，那么Atlassian提供的就是烘烤盤）。Atlassian的“粉絲群”正在壯大。2018財年該公司收入同比上漲41%，達到8.74億美元，再加上IT運營和服務市場，它的收入上升空間非常大，可以達到200億美元。 這些API公司很小也很新，投機色彩較大。但風投公司Bessemer Venture Partners的投資人拜倫·迪特爾相信他們的“增壓”業務模式就要結出碩果。迪特爾是Twilio和SendGrid的早期投資者。SendGrid則是一家以API為主的電子郵件公司，最近被Twilio收購。迪特爾說：“今后幾年股市上將會出現一大批這樣的公司。”（財富中文網） 本文另一版本刊登在2019年4月出版的《財富》雜志上，標題為《押寶科技積木》。 譯者：Charlie 審校：夏林 |
Because the API trend is so new, most of the action remains in the private markets. But a growing field of publicly traded companies offers options for savvy investors. Twilio (twlo), whose CEO, Jeff Lawson, is a veteran of Amazon’s cloud business, derives most of its revenue from communications APIs—linkages that help businesses contact customers through text messages and phone calls. It’s a steadily growing category, and Twilio’s stock more than tripled over the past year as the product took off. For those seeking to invest in the communications API trend at a lower valuation, Patrick Walravens, an analyst at JMP Securities, recommends Bandwidth (BAND), a telecom concern whose business fundamentals are “not particularly well understood yet” by the market. Twilio trades at a multiple of around 18 times last year’s revenue of $650 million; Bandwidth trades at just five times its $204 million in revenue. APIs are also making an impact in payment processing, where they help connect merchants, banks, and consumers. The most mature API player in this market is Stripe, which is privately held. But public-market investors can get exposure to a fast follower, Adyen (AYDEN), a ?Netherlands-based payment processor that brought in $1.95 billion last fiscal year and counts Uber and Spotify among its customers. Another up-and-comer is Okta (okta), which sells “identity management” tech that eliminates the hassle of passwords. The company originally sold identity products for use just in the workplace, says Todd McKinnon, Okta’s CEO, but soon found its corporate customers clamoring for a way to verify the identities of their customers—a market McKinnon believes could grow to be bigger than the workplace one. In addition to the initial product, Okta now sells a customer-focused, API-powered product to companies ranging from Adobe to MGM Resorts. The company’s share price has zoomed more than 260% since its 2017 IPO, but JMP’s Walravens recently wrote that its valuation “fairly captures the company’s impressive growth.” Atlassian (team), an Australian outfit, specializes not in providing APIs but rather in offering developers the tools they need to work with the APIs other companies supply. Its Jira product, for instance, helps coders and project managers track software progress, bugs, and other issues, while its Confluence tool enables developers to collaborate on coding. (As Twilio’s Lawson puts it: If your coders ran a cookie factory, Atlassian would supply the baking sheets.) Its fan base is growing; in its 2018 fiscal year, revenue rose 41% over the year prior, to $874 million, and it has plenty of room to expand in the $20 billion–plus market for IT operations and service. Small and new as they are, these API-first businesses are relatively speculative bets. But Byron Deeter, an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners and an early backer of both Twilio and SendGrid, an API-focused email business that Twilio recently acquired, believes their turbocharged business models are only now coming to fruition. “You’re going to see a lot more of these companies in the public markets in the years ahead,” he says. A version of this article appears in the April 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Betting on Tech’s Building Blocks.” |
