Ankra

Ankra AB, a Stockholm-based enterprise software company established in 2021, operates as a cloud infrastructure automation platform. The company was co-founded by Mark Shine, Mattias Karlsson Åsell, and Benjamin Klingsbo. Their collective experience on projects for Ericsson's 5G, Saab's military-grade infrastructure, and Sweden's FX banking infrastructure, along with business scaling at Google, highlighted a significant challenge: the increasing complexity of cloud infrastructure was consuming a substantial amount of developers' time, diverting them from core application development.

Ankra's platform is engineered to address this by automating cloud infrastructure setup and maintenance, enabling software companies to launch products and services in days instead of months. It serves software development teams by streamlining resource provisioning and simplifying the management of cloud infrastructure. The business model is B2B, targeting companies that develop for the cloud and face challenges with the complexity, time, and human dependency associated with DevOps. Revenue is generated through a tiered subscription model, including a free "Foundation" plan for startups, a "Pro" plan for larger teams, and a custom "Enterprise" plan.

The core offering is a platform that unifies the tools needed to manage Kubernetes at scale, such as kubectl, Helm, and ArgoCD, along with monitoring and security, into a single interface. Key features include the ability to import and manage any existing Kubernetes cluster, whether on-premises or in the cloud, and deploy applications using reusable groups of add-ons and manifests called "Stacks". The platform provides an extensive library of vetted Helm charts and allows users to add their own. It also incorporates AI-powered workflows, including an AI Stack Builder and AI Editor, which offer real-time YAML validation and security suggestions. In October 2023, Ankra secured €1.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by the UK B2B investor SuperSeed, with participation from other institutional investors and angels, to further develop the platform and expand its operations into the UK market. Keywords: cloud infrastructure automation, Kubernetes management, DevOps automation, infrastructure as platform, Kubernetes deployment, cloud architecture platform, Helm chart management, CI/CD integration, multi-cloud operations, developer operations, enterprise software, infrastructure as code, application lifecycle management, automated resource provisioning, cloud cost reduction, Mark Shine, Mattias Karlsson Åsell, Benjamin Klingsbo, SuperSeed, Techstars