WSO2 is an open-source technology provider founded in 2005. It delivers software and cloud solutions that provide foundational technologies for application development and identity and access management (IAM).^[3] This represents an expansion upon its original focus on integrating application programming interfaces (APIs), applications, and web services locally and across the Internet.

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WSO2

Industry	Middleware
Founded	August 2005; 18 years ago (2005-08)
Founder	Paul Fremantle Sanjiva Weerawarana
Headquarters	Santa Clara, CA , United States
Number of locations	11 (2023[1])
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Vinny Smith (Executive Chairman) Sanjiva Weerawarana (Founder) James Clark (Director) Paul Fremantle (Co-Founder)
Number of employees	900+[2]
Website	wso2.com

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WSO2 was founded by Sanjiva Weerawarana, Paul Fremantle, and Davanum Srinivas in August 2005, backed by Intel Capital, Toba Capital, and Pacific Controls. Weerawarana^[4] was an IBM researcher and a founder of the Web services platform.^[5][6] He led the creation of IBM SOAP4J,^[7] which later became Apache SOAP, and was the architect of other notable projects. Fremantle was one of the authors of IBM's Web Services Invocation Framework and the Web Services Gateway.^[8] An Apache member since the original Apache SOAP project, Fremantle oversaw the donation of WSIF and WSDL4J to Apache and led IBM's involvement in the Axis C/C++ project.

Fremantle was WSO2's chief technology officer (CTO) from 2008-2020,^{[9] [10]} and was named one of InfoWorld's Top 25 CTOs his first year in the role.^[11] Currently, Fremantle serves as a consultant for multiple technology companies, including WSO2.^[10] In 2017, Tyler Jewell took over as CEO ^[12] while Weerawarana focused on the Ballerina open-source project.^{[13] [14]} In 2019, Vinny Smith became the Executive Chairman.^[15] Weerawarana returned to the role of CEO in 2020.^[14]

A subsidiary, WSO2Mobile, was launched in 2013, with Harsha Purasinghe of Microimage as the CEO and co-founder.^[16] In March 2015, WSO2.Telco was launched in partnership with Malaysian telecommunications company Axiata, ^[17] which held a majority stake in the venture.^[18] WSO2Mobile has since been re-absorbed into its parent company.

In 2006, Intel Capital invested $4 million in WSO2,^[19] and continued to invest in subsequent years. In 2010, Godel Technologies invested in WSO2 for an unspecified amount,^[20] and in 2012 the company raised a third round of $10 million.^[21][22] Official WSO2 records point to this being from Toba Capital, Cisco, and Intel Capital.^[23] In August 2015, a funding round led by Pacific Controls and Toba raised another $20 million.^[24][25] In November 2021, WSO2 obtained $90 million in financing from Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Credit.^[26] In May 2022, WSO2 completed its Series E funding with an additional $93 million investment from Info Edge.^[27]

WSO2 products are released under the Apache License Version 2.^[34] Like the Apache project itself, WSO2 follows open development principles and publishes architecture and development discussions.

The company gained recognition from a 2011 report in InformationWeek that eBay used WSO2 ESB as a key element of their transaction-processing software.^[49] In 2022, InformationWeek published a podcast interview with WSO2 customer Hard Rock on “consolidating different digital customer experiences across Hard Rock's properties.” ^[50] Research firm Gartner noted that WSO2 was a leading competitor in the application infrastructure market of 2014.^[51]

Recognition for WSO2 in the area of API management includes a rating of 4.5 out of 5 in the Gartner Peer Insights: Full Life Cycle API Management and a position in the Visionaries Quadrant of the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management.^{[52] [53] [54]}

Recognition for WSO2 in the areas of identity and access management and CIAM includes a rating of 4.3 out of 5 in the Gartner Peer Insights: Access Management, a Strong Performer position in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Identity And Access Management, Q4 2022, and a Leader position in the KuppingerCole Leadership Compass: CIAM Platforms, 2022.^{[55] [56] [57] [46]}

As of 2023, WSO2 has offices in: Mountain View, California; Austin, Texas; London, UK; São Paulo, Brazil; Sydney, Australia; Munich, Germany; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Mumbai, India; Singapore, and Colombo, Sri Lanka. The bulk of its research and operations are conducted from its main office in Colombo.^[58]