Having worked on building some of the most sophisticated technology applications to support Wall Street and the financial services industry, Gary Hoberman saw the bottlenecks that traditional software development practices cause firsthand. This led him to found Unqork, the no-code application platform, that’s used by enterprises to build custom software. Unqork’s interface is entirely visual, speeding up the entire development process, supported by a simple drag and drop interface. Developers are able to build fully-responsive UI (compatible with any device) experiences within sophisticated applications that comply with the company’s branding and style guidelines. While Unqork gives users the freedom of customization, it also has a library of industry-specific, pre-configured templates that can easily be used to get products built faster. Partners already using the platform for their software development needs include Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, and Pacific Life Insurance.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Gary Hoberman to learn more about the impressive growth in the popularity of no-code platforms, expanding Unqork’s team by 150 in the midst of the pandemic, and the company’s recent funding round, which brings the total funding raised to $365.2M.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
$207M in Series C funding.
Tell us about the product or service that Unqork offers.
Unqork invented the first completely visual, no-code application platform that helps enterprises build complex custom software faster, with higher quality and lower costs than traditional approaches––all without a single line of code. Unqork’s platform was designed to meet the complexity, scale, and security required to support mission-critical applications at the world’s largest organizations.
What inspired the start of Unqork?
I spent decades in the world’s largest and most sophisticated companies as a technology leader – CIO at MetLife, MD at Citi, and years on Wall Street building technology solutions to business challenges. I kept running into the same barrier. Traditional software development methods – using custom code and accepting all the costs, complexities, and delays that come with it – were stifling the business.
I left to fix the problem and provide enterprises with a way to create better software, faster, without writing a single line of code. That’s what Unqork offers our customers.
How is Unqork different?
Unqork is unique because it is the only no-code platform that is designed for mission-critical applications.
The history of low-code/no-code applications is that they generally were relegated to building applications with low functionality. Almost all offerings were web-based spreadsheets designed to support simple, internal tools. You previously wouldn’t think to build a trading system, mortgage origination software, or the system to manage through a pandemic on low-/no-code platforms.
Low-code offerings provide efficiencies that increase developer productivity, but they almost all require coding to do the hard stuff. This new code becomes legacy the moment it’s written, and re-creates the same problems low-code/no-code claims to fix as software updates and maintenance becomes an exercise in code.
That is why Unqork built the first no-code platform designed to support the complexity, scale, and security of mission-critical enterprise applications. The NYC and DC COVID-19 hubs built on Unqork saw massive volume. During peak windows, COVID-19 hubs built on Unqork processed millions of submissions and day while some other low- and no-code offerings max out at 100,000 records for an entire application.
The real value of this space lies in the combination of truly eliminating code in both the creation and upkeep of software while still supporting mission-critical applications.
What market does Unqork target and how big is it?
Our target market is the $500B spent annually on custom enterprise code.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
We raised our target revenue for 2020 before the pandemic and have not broken that course. Our platform has been able to help governments—like DC and NYC—in their efforts to support residents during COVID.
As organizations are looking to digitize business functions in reaction to the pandemic, Unqork’s enterprise no-code platform is an appealing way to quickly spin up mission-critical solutions to support those efforts.
We have more than 150 employees (full staff is a little north of 350) that have never seen an Unqork office because they joined after we started remote work.
We have more than 150 employees (full staff is a little north of 350) that have never seen an Unqork office because they joined after we started remote work.
Of course, COVID has thrown hurdles at Unqork like every organization, but our team has reacted in a fearless way to continue to drive growth.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
One of the primary reasons for this financing was to help meet the tremendous global demand for Unqork’s platform. We will be ramping up our activities in EMEA and other international markets, as well as continuing to invest in our product to make sure Unqork continues to be the leading enterprise no-code platform.
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