When adding text code from a third-party source into a platform, the process is an unavoidable and time-consuming chore. Developers currently spend a large part of their day reviewing things like “NPM” packages and such. There are developer libraries and text code platforms like JetBrains and Visual Studio, but these don’t entirely solve the problem. A U.K. startup thinks it might have the answer.
CRANQ is a low-code IDE (integrated dev environment, like Visual Studio) which provides component authoring, with, it says, a lot of reusability. Its focus on standardized datatypes and ports means that intent can be easily checked, says the company. It’s now raised a pre-seed £1 million funding from Venrex and Profounders.
Developers build their code in the IDE visually, using a drag-and-drop interface. So far it’s been used to build a version of the Educai.io back end, and alpha trials will begin this summer.
The co-founders are Toby Rowland and Dan Stocker. Rowland, CEO, is a serial entrepreneur, best known for co-founding King.com in 2003. His most recent digital startup — Mangahigh.com — was acquired by Westermann Publishing in 2018, and subsequently, Rowland launched RyzeHydrogen.com for the hydrogen-for-transport market. Stocker, CTO, is an experienced developer, software architect and inventor. Among other projects, Dan conceived and created Giant, a React competitor, in 2012.
CRANQ’s initial focus on testing will also bring it into competition with Postman.com. The Workflow space (Zapier, N8N etc.) also overlaps with CRANQ.
But CRANQ is addressing a sizeable market. The microservices market is estimated to be worth $32 billion in 2023, growing at 16% you, according to some estimates.
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