GraphQL technology company Meteor Development Group Inc., which does business as Apollo, is trying to change how developers approach the way they build application programming interfaces after landing a $22 million round of funding.

The Series C round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Matrix Partners, with participation from existing investors Trinity Ventures and Webb Investment network. It brings Apollo’s total funding to $53.2 million.

Apollo sells what it calls a “Data Graph Platform” based on the GraphQL query language. The platform enables application developers to build a “data graph” atop of their existing APIs so as to speed up development times, the company says.

GraphQL is an open-source query language first developed by Facebook Inc. that describes how a client should request information through an API. In a broad sense, GraphQL is a syntax developers can use to ask for specific data and return that data from multiple sources. Once the client defines the structure of the data needed, the exact same structure of data is returned from the server.

GraphQL is said to be superior to older API technologies such as SOAP and REST because it helps create more flexible APIs that can be adjusted with changing needs and provides more uniformity across applications. When applications need to be adjusted to add new or remove unused features, those corresponding fields in the query can simply be adjusted and executed with minimal effort and disruption.

In addition to querying APIs, GraphQL can also be used to query data graphs, which are a fairly new innovation used by companies to map all of their data and digital services. Data graphs are meant to make data more accessible, the idea being that a single query can cross multiple data types and services.

Data graphs are the “missing layer of the stack” for developers, Apollo co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Geoff Schmidt said.

“Today, technologies like REST force app developers to spend half of their time not building nice things for users, but writing data-fetching glue code,” he added. “Our goal is for every company in the world to run on a data graph so that app developers can spend their time building great things for the rest of us.”

Apollo’s Data Graph Platform doesn’t just make life simpler, but also helps developers to better secure their apps and data. It does this by limiting data graph queries to those that have been pre-authorized, and it integrates with continuous integration systems to protect against breaking changes. It also monitors the performance of data graph queries to ensure a high level of responsiveness.

Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Peter Levine said he was backing Apollo because he believes every company will eventually use data graphs to ensure they can get the “right data” to their apps and devices. “We see this is an enormous opportunity,” he said.

Apollo said it plans to use the new funds to add both open-source and proprietary components to its Data Graph Platform.

Image: Apollo