When Matija Šošić first started working in web development, he was struck by the complexity involved in building a full-stack, production-ready web application. A key challenge he faced stemmed from the highly fragmented tooling landscape, where front-end and back-end development required entirely different toolsets. As Šošić put it, developers must expend significant effort to integrate these many disparate components, while constantly ensuring the resulting system remains scalable, reliable, and secure.
Realizing he wasn’t alone in these struggles, Matija teamed up with his twin brother, Martin Šošić, in 2020. Martin encountered similar hurdles in his own development career, making the brothers uniquely positioned to address the problem head-on. Together, they founded Wasp in 2021—an ambitious platform designed specifically to bridge fragmented web-development ecosystems.
Wasp does not intend to replace existing development tools; instead, it serves as a powerful coordinator that binds widely-used technologies such as React, Node.js, and Prisma into a single cohesive environment. On top of accelerating the deployment of integrated, functional applications, Wasp proactively identifies common gaps and errors that arise when combining diverse web tools—like missing API keys, incomplete configurations, or structural flaws—and recommends corrections.
Such proactive support comes at an especially critical moment: the rapid growth and adoption of AI-based coding assistants, such as Windsurf (formerly Codeium) and Cursor, have democratized software development, enabling non-technical users to write code with relative ease. While this democratization is largely positive, Šošić warns against what he terms “vibe coding,” cautioning that casually-written code often falls short of enterprise standards. Wasp’s platform helps even less experienced users build robust, stable applications suitable for complex, real-world business needs.
Importantly, Wasp itself is open-source, and developers can freely deploy its generated applications either in the public cloud or within a private enterprise infrastructure. The decision to layer Wasp on existing technology—not forcing developers to adopt an entirely new programming language—reflects the founders’ belief in minimal disruption and maximum compatibility.
After joining Y Combinator’s winter 2021 batch, the Wasp team launched their beta platform in 2023, quickly gaining traction. Today, Wasp boasts more than 26,000 GitHub stars and serves a diverse clientele ranging from innovative startups to established Fortune 500 companies.
Late in 2024, Wasp quietly completed a $3.7 million funding round led by HV Capital, alongside investors such as Fifth Quarter Ventures, Big Bets, and Metis Ventures; notable angel investors included Ant Wilson, co-founder and CTO of Supabase, and Søren Bramer Schmidt, CEO of Prisma. Including their initial seed round in 2021—which brought in $1.5 million—the startup has raised a total of $5.2 million to date.
With this fresh infusion of capital, the team will focus heavily on reaching version 1.0 of their platform, set to include expanded language support and server-side rendering capabilities. The Šošić brothers remain firmly committed to improving their core open-source framework, building on four years of intensive user feedback, and solidifying Wasp’s role within an increasingly AI-influenced software development sector.
“This round of funding gives us substantial freedom,” Šošić explained, “allowing us to strategically execute the next level of our vision, upgrade our product to version 1.0, and cement our position within the rapidly evolving world of AI-driven development.”
