Ronak Ganatra

VP of Marketing

Christopher Kühn

Chief Commercial Officer

![GraphCMS Joins the Mach Alliance (1).png](https://media.graphcms.com/FvUtFakHSeyQ4jhbgrfa)

Berlin, Germany, 22 Nov. 2021: GraphCMS — the Berlin-based company behind the headless GraphQL content federation platform that helps leading companies unify the content layer by federating business-critical APIs — announced today that they have joined the [MACH alliance](https://machalliance.org/), an independent group of tech companies advocating for an open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem. As part of the MACH alliance, GraphCMS will work closely with the other members to guide companies on how they can benefit from a lean and modular approach to enterprise technologies, by adopting MACH (microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless) architectures.

Liberating data effectively from legacy and third-party systems is a key challenge for digitally-driven enterprises as they strive towards creating immersive, high-performance digital experiences. GraphCMS’s leading content management capabilities and novel approach to remote data fetching from external systems such as other MACH vendors — dubbed “[Content Federation](https://graphcms.com/blog/introducing-content-federation)” — enables microservices to talk to each other, helping organizations deliver cutting-edge digital experiences across platforms, from streaming services to innovative new eCommerce platforms in a fraction of the time. Companies can build complex applications while aggregating their data from multiple sources into a single API, effectively eliminating content silos and “API Sprawl”.

“*The MACH alliance’s ethos of encouraging companies in adopting modern, composable microservices rather than monolithic suites is extremely aligned with our own vision at GraphCMS, as we work with our customers in modernizing their stacks using best-of-breed solutions*”, explains Christopher Kühn, CCO at GraphCMS.

Already supporting companies like [Telenor](https://graphcms.com/case-studies/telenor-case-study), [Burrow](https://graphcms.com/case-studies/burrow-case-study), [2U Inc.](https://graphcms.com/case-studies/2u-case-study), and [Prym](https://graphcms.com/case-studies/prym-case-study) in their ambitious initiatives to deliver better digital experiences to millions of consumers via Content Federation, GraphCMS aims to accelerate the enterprise adoption of MACH compliant software architectures as the “glue” that federates them together into a single GraphQL API.

“*We’re thrilled to be joining the MACH Alliance. Their approach represents the future of software, where companies are in charge of defining composable tech stacks that are perfectly aligned with scaling their business model, rather than adapting to inflexible monolithic suites*”, adds Ronak Ganatra, VP of Marketing at GraphCMS.

### About GraphCMS

GraphCMS is the first enterprise-class headless content management and federation platform that enables data unification from multiple APIs. With the industry's most versatile GraphQL content APIs and a novel approach in external data sourcing via API extensions, the content platform enables use cases beyond simple headless CMS' capabilities. Enterprise customers see GraphCMS as a database highly optimized for structured content while giving content creators the tools to build their ultimate content pipeline. GraphCMS is developed by GraphCMS GmbH, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and is currently enabling over 50,000 teams across the world to rapidly build and deliver tomorrow’s omnichannel digital experiences at scale.

### About the MACH Alliance

The MACH Alliance is a [501(c)(6)] non-profit organization, governed by an independent board and does not endorse specific vendors, members, or otherwise. The Alliance was formed in June 2020 to help enterprise organizations navigate the complex modern technology landscape. It aims to guide and show the business advantage of open tech ecosystems that are Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless. All MACH Alliance members meet certification principles that are published on the website.

Founding members include Amplience, commercetools, Contentstack, EPAM Systems, and Valtech. The MACH Alliance welcomes technology companies and individual industry experts who share the same vision for the future. Learn more at machalliance.org.


**Press Contact:** Emily Nielsen | [press@graphcms.com](mailto:press@graphcms.com) | +49 30 28879641


Today, we're excited to share that we've joined the MACH alliance to help federate composable architectures.

GraphCMS joins the MACH alliance

Michael Lukaszczyk

Co-Founder & CEO

Daniel Winter

Co-Founder & CTO

![Announcing our Series A (1).png](https://media.graphcms.com/31GOaeYwRPy7vte70Z4B)

Read the original Press Releases on [Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/graphcms-pitch-deck-for-10-million-funding-round-2021-7?r=US&IR=T) and [EU Startups](https://www.eu-startups.com/2021/07/berlin-based-graphcms-raises-8-million/).

Read our blog post on the announcement [here](/blog/series-a).

- GraphCMS’s content management platform enables businesses to cut out middleware, and join siloed data from diverse sources into a single API 
- The company’s ‘Content Federation’ meta-layer supports digital teams to accelerate the product development cycle and time-to-market by 50% 
- New funding from OpenOcean will be used to accelerate product adoption across North America and Europe 


**July 22, 2021, Berlin, Germany:** GraphCMS - a Berlin-based company whose pioneering content management platform enables enterprises to seamlessly deliver better digital experiences - announced it has raised a $10 million Series A funding round. The round was led by [OpenOcean](https://openocean.vc/), and previous investors [Peak](https://peak.capital/) and [Paua Ventures](https://www.pauaventures.com/) also participated, bringing the company’s total funding to $13.7 million. Mango Capital’s [Robin Vasan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinvasan/) (investor in [HashiCorp](https://www.hashicorp.com/), [Netlify](https://netlify.com), and others), [Fauna](https://fauna.com) founder and CTO, [Evan Weaver](https://twitter.com/evan), and [Instana](https://www.instana.com/) (acquired by IBM) founder and CEO [Mirko Novakovic](https://twitter.com/mirko_novakovic) also joined this round. GraphCMS will use the funding to expand its commercial footprint within the US and European markets, further supporting businesses to create world-class content experiences in a fraction of time. 

Liberating data effectively from third-party systems is a key challenge for digitally-driven enterprises, particularly in industries such as fintech, health tech, and streaming services. Traditionally, businesses would need to build custom middleware to access data from a range of microservices, but this is a challenging, error-prone, and expensive task for engineering teams. Tackling vast amounts of complex siloed data is laborious, slowing down enterprises’ product development cycles, and limiting agile content distribution. 

![Custom Middleware is Expensive to Maintain.png](https://media.graphcms.com/P9MSspsHShaPzsOmdJHR)

GraphCMS’s [Content Federation](/use-cases/content-federation) is the pioneering plug-and-play solution to this problem. Users can cut out the middleware, and [join siloed data from diverse sources into a single API](/blog/working-with-remote-fields) programmatically. Enterprises are able to access this single API via whichever front end they prefer, allowing a broad range of use cases - from company intranets to new financial services products. This innovative approach positions GraphCMS uniquely against their competitors within the [headless CMS](/academy/headless-cms) space, as content can not only be served to any device, but also sourced from anywhere. Companies using Content Federation can push products to [market 50% more quickly](/case-studies/prym-case-study), giving them a significant competitive edge over rivals. 

With Content Federation, companies can [build complex applications](/use-cases/application-content) while streamlining all their data from a single source of truth. To build a video-on-demand platform similar to Netflix, for example, GraphCMS can query remote sources to enrich all the content and ensure consistent data is distributed to the frontend via a single API. The actual films are delivered via API from the production providers; images can be queried from a DAM (Digital Asset Management) solution; metadata like subtitles come from their corresponding sources, and enrichments like ratings and reviews come from services like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes. Within a single call to GraphCMS’s API, all these sources and content can be combined and served to a viewer within milliseconds to ensure a seamless digital experience.

![This is Where We Are Now.png](https://media.graphcms.com/PS2YTt3Tq7JC8kDarQSq)

Michael Lukaszczyk, CEO and Co-Founder at GraphCMS says: “*There has been a significant shift in the way content is being created, delivered, and consumed, with enterprises grappling to keep up with the fast-paced requirements of the omnichannel world. GraphCMS is the solution to a world where content is king, and data from microservices is vital for companies from all sectors. Our best-in-class technology stack provides digital teams with a solution to the thorny issue of siloed data integration. This is huge in terms of accelerating the product development cycle, saving enterprises time and money, and enabling them to better serve their customers. It promises to be a key enabler of the online world as data continues to grow in importance and complexity.*’ 


GraphCMS has experienced strong commercial and operational growth over 2021, achieving 80x growth in revenue since its initial seed investment in July 2018. The company has a [growing portfolio of enterprise customers](/enterprise-headless-cms) across Europe and the United States, all using GraphCMS’s APIs to deliver digital experiences to millions of end-users. Current customers include audio products corporation Shure, global ed-tech platform [2U Inc.](/case-studies/2u-case-study), multinational telecommunications company [Telenor](/case-studies/telenor-case-study), and two European government bodies. 

![GraphCMS_PR_Crop2.jpeg](https://media.graphcms.com/YXiY3PQ2RK5lSjTbTmTA)

“*OpenOcean’s investment in GraphCMS represents our largest initial investment to date in a Series A company*”, says [Ekaterina Almasque](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/katya-almasque-vc), General Partner at OpenOcean. “*GraphCMS is a business primed to solve the challenges facing the industry today, from the exponential growth of siloed data to the increasing complexity of the enterprise digital journey. Firms are crying out for a new approach that delivers applications with the convenience of a database, the collaborative nature of a federated content platform, and the programmability of an API gateway. GraphCMS’ breakthrough approach combines the best of the GraphQL and content management system worlds to give their customers the edge over the competition, and the opportunity to lead  the way in the era of rapid digitalization*.”  

GraphCMS plans to use the new funding to increase its focus on API integrations, accelerate product adoption, and scale its team globally with a particular focus on North America and Europe. [Partnerships](/partners) with digital agencies, software integrators, and technology partners will help the company to rapidly scale and expand its footprint. Ekaterina Almasque, General Partner at OpenOcean, will join the company’s board.

---

### About GraphCMS 

GraphCMS is the enterprise-class content management platform that enables ambitious digital products at scale. With the industry's most versatile GraphQL content APIs and a novel approach in external data sourcing, the content platform enables use cases beyond competitor’s capabilities. Enterprise customers see GraphCMS as a database highly optimized for structured content while giving content creators the tools to build their ultimate content pipeline. GraphCMS is developed by GraphCMS GmbH, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and is currently enabling nearly 50,000 teams across the world to rapidly build and deliver tomorrow’s omnichannel digital experiences at scale. 

### About OpenOcean

OpenOcean is the pioneering venture capital investor in data solutions and software. It has a long entrepreneurial history, led by the founders of several category-defining businesses, including MySQL and MariaDB. Since its foundation in 2011, OpenOcean has continued to pioneer cutting-edge technologies at the forefront of the data economy. It typically leads or co-leads Series A funding rounds in European start-ups that are removing barriers to digitalization or enabling the potential of next-generation technologies to be realized.


We’ve raised a Series A investment of $10M to unify the Content Layer

GraphCMS Raises $10M Series A to Unify the Content Layer

![State of Jamstack 2021.png](https://media.graphcms.com/gp7VSJZVTyOXgtpeQfdA)

Kentico surveyed 750 developers in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia for their "State of Jamstack" report in 2021. The purpose of this report was to gather thoughts on the [Jamstack](/academy/what-is-the-jamstack), the maturity of the framework, and understand how developers' work is impacted by switching to the Jamstack. 

The “[State of the Jamstack 2021](https://kontent.ai/resources/state-of-jamstack-2021-report)” report surveyed 750 developers worldwide, currently working with the Jamstack, of which 39% attribute performance as the main reason for adopting the Jamstack. The leading choices were security (45%) and cost-effectiveness (42%). In contrast, performance led the list at 52% in the 2020 study.

When it came for the respondents to select their preferred location for storing content, the responses were well split between local files, cloud-based documents, and Headless CMS.

![GraphCMS for Content.png](https://media.graphcms.com/R5w9YR10T2m7oVu7dkiW)

38% opted for Google Docs, with GraphCMS coming in second at 24%, as the leading Headless CMS. Other Headless CMS on the list included ButterCMS (17%), Netlify CMS (16%), Contentstack (16%), DatoCMS (15%), Contentful (13%), and Sanity (12%) among others.

According to the report, 43% of respondents opted for Google Docs in 2020, dropping 5% in 2021, as more Jamstack friendly tools appeared. GraphCMS was chosen among developers in midsize to large companies, particularly from within the IT industry.

Download the full report [here](https://kontent.ai/resources/state-of-jamstack-2021-report).

*(Chart Credit: Kentico Kontent, [State of Jamstack 2021](https://kontent.ai/resources/state-of-jamstack-2021-report))*

Kentico surveyed 750 developers in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia for the "State of Jamstack" report in 2021, to gather thoughts on the Jamstack.

GraphCMS emerges as "Most Preferred" Headless CMS in "State of Jamstack 2021" Report

![Forrester names GraphCMS as trusted DXP Vendor, 2021.png](https://media.graphcms.com/EqwuHzlZT7q7seVrMEGI)

In [Forrester's latest "Now Tech" report on Digital Experience Platforms](https://www.forrester.com/report/Now+Tech+Digital+Experience+Platforms+Q2+2021/-/E-RES161794?objectid=RES161794), Q2 2021, Joe Cicman dives into what to focus on when selecting a DXP.

Intended for organizations looking to improve their agility and scale with digital experience platforms, this report highlights the leading vendors in the DX space and explores the benefits that a composable DXP approach brings to digital leaders from varied backgrounds such as commerce, content, marketing, and data.

Focusing on the importance of resilient architectures to create coherent customer experiences, enable operational efficiency through modern infrastructure, and fuel insights-led optimization, the report covers the current DXP landscape by selecting vendors based on size and functionality.

Covering vendors like Adobe, Contentful, Microsoft, Contentstack, GraphCMS, and Liferay by their market presence and geographical distribution, the report breaks the DXP market into 4 segments based on their central role and capabilities around content, commerce, data, and marketing.

Forrester recognizes GraphCMS's presence primarily across the Content, Data, and Marketing segments, with a geographical split in customer base by revenue between North America (40%), Latin America (10%), EMEA (45%), and APAC (5%). Furthermore, the report highlights our vertical market presence by revenue within Financial Services, Government, and Telecommunications, with a core focus on [data-heavy application content and product](/use-cases/application-content) use-cases with customers such as [Prym](/case-studies/prym-case-study), [Biocentury](/case-studies/biocentury-case-study), and [Telenor](/case-studies/telenor-case-study) - who are using GraphCMS to [federate their stacks](/use-cases/content-federation) and deliver modern digital experiences via a unified GraphQL endpoint.

Overall, the report will help digital leaders identify a suitable digital experience platform (DXP) provider that fulfills their business goals from a wide variety of vendors. It will also help organizations comprehend how a composable architecture with best-of-breed APIs can help them in creating consistent customer experiences to enable modern digital operations that accelerate their business model.

Being listed as a trusted DXP vendor comes as validation for us as we continue with our commitment to defining better [API-first approaches to build modular DXPs](/resources/dxp-report-2020), rather than settling for monolithic suites.

[Access the full report - Now Tech: Digital Experience Platforms, Q2 2021](https://www.forrester.com/report/Now+Tech+Digital+Experience+Platforms+Q2+2021/-/E-RES161794?objectid=RES161794).

GraphCMS listed among 28 trusted and leading vendors in the DXP space in Forrester’s “Now Tech: Digital Experience Platforms, Q2 2021” report.

GraphCMS Recognized in Forrester's "Now Tech" Report on Digital Experience Platforms, 2021

Michael Birnbaum

Head of Customer Success

![GraphCMS wins Guide to Iceland as Customer.png](https://media.graphcms.com/vRON8gt4RtyGN8DW91CO)

**Berlin, Germany; May 20, 2021:** GraphCMS signs a definitive agreement welcoming [Guide to Iceland](https://guidetoiceland.is/) as a new customer. As one of the leading [travel](/customers/travel-and-hospitality) marketplaces for Icelandic travel services in the industry, Guide to Iceland will expand two travel portals and launch one new portal reaching millions of travelers around the world.

With over 1,000 featured vendors, 30 million website visitors, and 8,000 customer reviews, Guide to Iceland is the leading marketplace for tours, cars, and accommodation in the Icelandic region, also providing in-depth articles, a network of locals, and a rich media gallery for visitors to make the most of their travels.

Guide to Iceland will be launching a new portal, Guide to Europe, which will include all travel activities for the region. To realize this ambitious venture, Guide to Iceland will rely on GraphCMS’s [GraphQL-Native APIs](/graphql-headless-cms). The key factors that led to this decision included the intuitiveness of [content modeling](/academy/what-is-content-modeling) within GraphCMS, the ability to [scale horizontally & vertically](/for-businesses), as well as the industry-leading support.

“With Guide to Iceland’s use case and growth plans, we’re once again thrilled to accept the challenge of customers scaling at a rapid pace with GraphCMS,” says CEO and Co-founder Michael Lukaszczyk. “This proves that [headless content management](/academy/headless-cms) is maturing well, with more ambitious projects opting to build digital experiences API-first.”


### About Guide to Iceland

Uniting over 1,000 Icelandic travel operators in a single community, Guide to Iceland remains the world's largest collaboration for Icelandic travel services. Their online platform provides unprecedented access to customer-reviewed tours, accommodation, and rental cars in Iceland, as well as unique packages, customized to meet the wishes of seasoned and first-time visitors alike.

With a wealth of resources, Guide to Iceland stands out as the most comprehensive source for Icelandic travel information in existence, featuring in-depth articles to extensive travel blogs and offering you the chance to connect directly with locals for expert first-hand guidance.

Guide to Iceland Website: https://guidetoiceland.is/

### About GraphCMS

GraphCMS is the first native GraphQL Headless Content Management System (CMS). As both a frontend and backend agnostic solution, GraphCMS was designed for building a hosted GraphQL back-end that enables agile teams to federate their entire tech stack. Giving developers and editors the power to create, enrich, deliver, and consume their content programmatically, GraphCMS is enabling over 40,000 teams across the world to rapidly build and deliver tomorrow’s omnichannel digital experiences at scale. GraphCMS is developed by GraphCMS GmbH, headquartered in Gießen, Germany, with an additional HQ in Berlin, Germany.

GraphCMS Website: https://graphcms.com

For further information or inquiries please reach out to [press@graphcms.com](mailto:press@graphcms.com).

GraphCMS signs a definitive agreement welcoming leading Icelandic travel marketplace, Guide to Iceland, as a new customer.

GraphCMS wins Guide to Iceland as a new Customer

Helen Kamender

Head of Marketing at Frontastic

![GraphCMS, Frontastic, and Shopmacher win Gamescon as a customer.png](https://media.graphcms.com/bPBSvxCCRJe82DLKK29R)

This Press Release originally appeared on Frontastic's website: [Read the original here](https://www.frontastic.cloud/blog/frontastic-wins-gamescom-as-customer?ref=graphcms).

**Cologne | Münster | Gescher | Giessen, April 27, 2021**. [gamescom](https://www.gamescom.global/), the world’s largest games event, which the industry association [game](https://www.game.de/) organizes together with [Koelnmesse](https://www.koelnmesse.com/), will once again be held 100% digitally this year after a purely digital event in the Corona year 2020. To offer all fans and partners the best possible digital experience, the organizers are completely revamping the **gamescom now** content hub, relying on storefront experience specialist [Frontastic](https://www.frontastic.cloud/) and headless content management system [GraphCMS](https://graphcms.com/).

With the help of the backend developers from the eCommerce agency [Shopmacher](https://www.shopmacher.de/), a platform is planned on which approximately 450 exhibitors from 31 countries will present themselves in the best possible way via the custom roles and permissions of GraphCMS. “The result is a content hub with a strong focus on entertainment, comparable to popular video streaming platforms,” explains Shopmacher Managing Director André Roitzsch.

### High expectations for the best performance

gamescom has high expectations for performance. “Last year, we counted 3.5 million visitors within 3 days,” says Chris Bauer, Head of gamescom and Events at game. “And they expect consistently high performance and fast response times, even at peak times – and on both desktop and mobile devices.”

“gamescom’s high expectations for performance and digital experiences fit perfectly with our vision of modular technologies working together in a stack. We want to contribute to a better experience for gaming fans,” added Christopher Kühn, chief commercial officer at GraphCMS.

Koelnmesse and the game association want to use Frontastic to optimize the user experience on the platform together with its team and the agency Shopmacher. Frontastic founder Thomas Gottheil sees this as a great compliment. “The games industry has inherently high expectations of a frontend,” he says. “After all, they are in constant competition with their competitors to provide the most spectacular user experience.”

gamescom 2021 will take place August 25-27, 2021. The new version of gamescom now is intended to lay the foundation for the further development of gamescom, because the organizers agree: hybrid events, with strong physical as well as digital presences, will be the future.

### About Frontastic

Frontastic is a Commerce Frontend Platform that unites business and development teams to build commerce sites on headless. Frontastic connects to APIs to unify tech landscapes and provides the necessary tools so commerce teams can focus on innovating new features. Founded in 2017, Frontastic has successfully established itself as the new standard for commerce frontends, with customers seeing higher conversion rates and a fast time to market. Frontastic is a 100% remote company, with over 30 employees in over 12 countries.

Find out more about Frontastic on [www.frontastic.cloud](http://www.frontastic.cloud/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/frontasticGmbH) and [LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/company/frontastic-gmbh/). 

### About GraphCMS

GraphCMS is the first native GraphQL Headless Content Management System (CMS). As both a frontend and backend agnostic solution, GraphCMS was designed for building a hosted GraphQL backend that enables agile teams to federate their entire tech stack. Giving developers and editors the power to create, enrich, deliver, and consume their content programmatically, GraphCMS is enabling over 40,000 teams across the world to rapidly build and deliver tomorrow’s omnichannel digital experiences at scale. GraphCMS is developed by GraphCMS GmbH, headquartered in Gießen, Germany, with an additional HQ in Berlin, Germany.

[graphcms.com](https://graphcms.com/)

### About Shopmacher

Shopmacher is Germany’s leading specialist agency for the KPI-driven development of technologies for the retail industry.

Originally started as an “agency for online shops”, Shopmacher, based in Gescher in the Münsterland province, has grown over the past fifteen years to become one of the top eCommerce companies in Germany and is now an established specialist for enterprise commerce solutions. About 70 employees in Gescher, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City implement intelligent and sales-boosting solutions for the digitalization of distribution channels in B2B and B2C. The philosophy is to keep retailers and manufacturers on the pulse of the rapidly changing requirements of digitalized trade with continuous, step-by-step, and measurable improvements.

[www.shopmacher.de](https://www.shopmacher.de/)

The world’s largest computer game fair, gamescom, trust the experts from GraphCMS, Frontastic, and Shopmacher to help build its digital event platform.

GraphCMS, Frontastic, and Shopmacher win gamescom as new customer

Press releases, announcements, and key updates from the GraphCMS team.

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