RapidAPI (Rapid)

How it happened

RapidAPI (later Rapid) ran the largest public API marketplace, linking some 4 million developers to roughly 40,000 APIs, and hit a $1B valuation in March 2022 on a $150M SoftBank-led Series D. After trying to compete on too many fronts, it cut about 82% of its staff across two 2023 rounds, shrinking from roughly 230 employees to about 42; in November 2024 the remnant was acquired by Nokia for an estimated $100M or less. Glassdoor reviews sharpen the fall: staff recount being assured the company was thriving and in rapid-growth mode only months before the first of two mass layoffs, and describe a top-down culture in which a pervasive fear discouraged anyone from raising problems.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.