R Software Inc., the company behind RapidAPI, which has built a developer-focused marketplace for application programming interfaces, said today it will extend its platform across the entire API development lifecycle after acquiring a company called Paw Cloud OU.

RapidAPI’s platform includes a hugely popular marketplace that provides access to thousands of publicly available APIs, covering everything from web search to sports results and breaking news.

APIs are lightweight programming interfaces used by developers to integrate their software applications with other apps and services. They’re an essential building block for all kinds of apps. For example, any app that integrates Google LLC’s Maps service for example, uses an API to do so.

In addition to its marketplace, RapidAPI also offers RapidAPI for Teams, a self-service platform that enables developers to publish, manage and collaborate on APIs and microservices, which are common components used to build modern apps.

As for Paw, it sells an API design and collaboration tool for Apple Mac users. But with today’s acquisition, it’s also announcing a new release of its platform that adds support for Linux and Windows operating systems too. Paw’s platform, now called RapidAPI Design by Paw (pictured), makes it possible for developers to simplify their development workflows and streamline API collaboration.

RapidAPI founder and Chief Executive Iddo Gino said the acquisition of Paw is a natural progression for the company thanks to its focus on empowering developers to create transformative software apps.

“Our decision to expand our product suite is driven by what we have heard directly from customers at every stage of our development, beginning with the need to create a white-labeled version of our public marketplace to adding the tools needed to design and test APIs,” Gino said.

RapidAPI Design by Paw will improve the developer experience thanks to its intuitive user interface, which enables them to quickly create, find and run API requests and set up arguments, headers, and parameters, the companies said. The main benefits are that it will allow developers to build complex APIs and generate code snippets much faster than before, the company said.

In addition, Paw can be extended through its JavaScript API to allow custom API flows in order to accelerate API delivery. Finally, RapidAPI Design by Paw makes collaboration across teams easier by enabling multiple development teams to work on larger projects while keeping all of their API calls in sync with automatic push and pull requests to the cloud, the companies said.

Paw founder and Chief Executive Micha Mizaheri said the integration with RapidAPI helps democratize and expand the usefulness of its API development tools. “Together, we create a connected experience for developers, providing them with everything they need for building, publishing and managing APIs,” he said.

RapidAPI said the latest release of the Paw platform with cross-platform support is available in beta now.

Image: R Software