Defang is on a mission to offer the easiest way to develop, deploy, and debug cloud apps
The company is led by a trio with experience at Microsoft and AWS and previously sold a startup to Workday.
Defang — the only Vancouver company accepted into the 2024 Google for Startups Accelerator — is aiming to make it “radically simpler” to develop, deploy, and debug cloud applications.
Typically, the process can take days or weeks, especially for beginner developers, as it requires configuring many different services — like compute, storage, networking, security, and logging — with the right security, permission, auto-scaling, and other settings after writing the code. While there have been attempts by other companies to streamline the process, the solutions have come with tradeoffs, the company told the Vancouver Tech Journal. Developers are often constrained to running their applications on a specific cloud platform or relying on a layer that becomes more complex, as say, the product evolves.
Defang is solving these problems through its command line interface (CLI) tool that leverages LLM and generative AI. Its AI assistant allows developers to generate an outline of their application using a simple English-language prompt. Afterward, they can test the application on their private server or the company’s playground environment — a faster and accessible way to test if users do not have a cloud account yet. If there are any errors, the AI assistant is able to identify and provide instructions on how to fix them. With one command, the application can be deployed to AWS, and soon, other platforms, as all the heavy lifting on the backend like the required configurations will be taken care of.
The company’s beta product is now available for free and its V1 product that will enable production deployments will be available by the end of this year.
“We hope to fundamentally change how developers develop, deploy, and debug cloud applications,” Lionello Lunesu, Defang’s CTO, said in an interview. “Our long term goal is to enable developers to go from an idea to a deployed cloud application in five minutes. Obviously, we’re not there yet, but you can already see it happening for simple applications today with Defang. As our platform matures, we see that happening for a much broader class of applications.”
Third venture together
The company’s plans are ambitious but it does have a notable team who previously worked together at Microsoft building cloud platforms and developer tools before starting Trusted Key — a digital identity platform that uses blockchain tech and was acquired by leading finance and HR company Workday. The founders include Lunesu, Prakash Sundaresan, and Antoine Cote. The entrepreneurs said the calling to start Defang began in 2022.
“It was a couple of years ago as we were each contemplating our next challenge,” said Sundaresan, who was also the former CTO of Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific R&D group. “I was just coming off a stint as a VP at AWS, and seeing how even as they appreciate the many benefits, customers are constantly struggling with the complexities of the cloud. At the same time, Lio and Antoine were also arriving at the same problem from different angles.”
Sundaresan added: “Lio had been building large scale apps at Workday as a senior architect, and Antoine had been building real-time trading systems as CTO at a crypto asset management firm. In each case, we found ourselves frustrated by how hard it was to build and deploy cloud applications and we thought to ourselves that there must be a better way. And that’s how the idea for Defang was born.”
To get the word out about its CLI tool, Defang focused on connecting with students, hobbyists, and other early career professionals “who were most challenged by the complexities of the cloud” at hackathons and workshops.
“Now we have a growing user base in this segment, and as these developers see the value, they share it with their friends and colleagues,” shared Sundaresan. “Going forward, we’ll be focusing on expanding the types of users in our audience. For example, being able to meet the needs of startups and software studios. Eventually, we’ll build up to enterprise use cases, but we have some work to do before we get there.”
Building and growing in Vancouver
Defang raised a pre-seed round to build its tool last year and is looking to raise again in the coming months. The company is planning on using the funds to improve the product, increase its user base, and expand its team. The tool will remain free for students and hobbyists and will roll out a pro tier option for professionals who need support with more advanced use cases.
Even though the founders have all had experiences living and working internationally, like in Seattle, the Bay Area, and even in Asia, they decided to open an office and build a team in Vancouver for many reasons.
“While the ecosystem here is smaller, the talent, passion, and commitment is second to none,” highlighted Sundaresan. “And of course, as a founder, if you raise funds in USD, then it goes a bit further here because of the exchange rate, not to mention the support for R&D from government programs such as IRAP and SR&ED. You also cannot beat Vancouver for the quality of life. So overall, we’re very happy with our decision to base the company in Vancouver and hope to grow it here in the coming years.”
For anyone thinking of leaving their corporate job to found their own venture like Defang’s founders, Cote reminds that there’s “no universal advice as everyone’s journey is different.”
“If you’re passionate about a problem and think you can solve it better in a startup environment compared to a big company, then for sure give it a try,” he said. “But make sure you’re ready to make the commitment financially, time wise, and emotionally as well, as the startup journey will require you to be all-in.”