Zapier Inc.
Company History
Zapier History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2011 in Columbia, Missouri, United States
When was Zapier founded?
Zapier was founded in 2011 in Columbia, Missouri, United States by Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig and Mike Knoop, making it 15 years old.
- Founded
- 2011
- Founding place
- Columbia, Missouri, United States
- Founders
- Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig and Mike Knoop
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Milestones documented
- 7 (2011–2025)
- Current CEO
- Wade Foster
- Acquisitions
- 4
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Development begins |
| 2012 | Public beta and Y Combinator |
| 2014 | Profitability |
| 2017 | De-location package |
| 2021 | $5 billion valuation |
| 2024 | Zapier Central, Vowel, and NoCodeOps |
| 2025 | Agents, MCP, and Utopian Labs |
- Where was Zapier founded?
- Zapier was founded in Columbia, Missouri, United States in 2011.
- Who founded Zapier?
- Zapier was founded by Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig and Mike Knoop.
- When did Zapier start?
- Zapier was founded in 2011.
- How old is Zapier?
- Zapier is 15 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
Wade Foster and Bryan Helmig were colleagues at Veterans United Home Loans in Columbia, Missouri, and Foster and Mike Knoop were doing freelance integration work on the side. In September 2011, Foster and Helmig started building a tool to connect software applications, and Knoop joined later that year. They worked on it alongside their full-time jobs. Y Combinator rejected their first application but accepted them on the second try. Foster went full-time in December 2011, Helmig in April 2012, and Knoop in May 2012, the month Zapier opened its public beta. The founders moved to Mountain View for the Y Combinator program that summer.
Founders
Wade Foster
Wade Foster co-founded Zapier in 2011 and has been its CEO since the company was founded. He left his job to work on Zapier full-time in December 2011 and led it through Y Combinator in 2012. He chose to keep the company fully remote and to fund growth from customer revenue after the seed round. He has also written extensively on Zapier's blog about remote work and how the company operates. Wade Foster was born in 1986.
Bryan Helmig
Bryan Helmig co-founded Zapier and began building the original integration tool with Wade Foster in September 2011. He joined the company full-time in April 2012 and led much of the early engineering behind Zapier's trigger-and-action automation engine. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Mike Knoop
Mike Knoop joined the founding team in late 2011 and went full-time in May 2012, the month Zapier launched its public beta. He worked on product and later led Zapier's early AI efforts, including the 2024 launch of Zapier Central. In 2024 he co-founded the ARC Prize, a competition based on François Chollet's ARC-AGI benchmark for AI reasoning. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Key Milestones
Development begins
Wade Foster and Bryan Helmig started building the tool in September, and Mike Knoop joined later that year.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPublic beta and Y Combinator
The public beta opened in May, and the founders joined Y Combinator in June.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgDe-location package
Zapier offered new hires $10,000 to move out of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$5 billion valuation
Sequoia Capital and Steadfast Financial bought shares from early investors in a secondary sale.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgZapier Central, Vowel, and NoCodeOps
Zapier launched Central for AI bots and acquired Vowel and NoCodeOps.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAgents, MCP, and Utopian Labs
Zapier Agents reached general availability, Zapier MCP launched, and Zapier acquired Utopian Labs in October.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgMajor Acquisitions
Makerpad
2021Zapier's first acquisition, announced in March 2021: a no-code education and community site founded by Ben Tossell. Terms were not disclosed.
Vowel
2024Acquired in March 2024, when Zapier also launched Zapier Central. Vowel made AI-powered video meeting software, and founder Andrew Berman joined Zapier.
NoCodeOps
2024Acquired in July 2024: an Atlanta-based no-code operations company.
Utopian Labs
2025Acquired in October 2025: an AI company, originally called Luna.ai, that built tools for writing sales emails. Its standalone product shut down the following month.
Keep researching Zapier
Zapier Company History FAQ
When, where, and how was Zapier originally founded?
Zapier was founded in October 2011 in Columbia, Missouri, by Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig, and Mike Knoop as an after-hours prototype to connect SaaS web APIs without custom code.
How did Zapier get into Y Combinator and what was its experience?
Zapier was initially rejected by Y Combinator for Winter 2012, but reapplied with working prototypes and paying beta customers, gaining acceptance into the legendary Summer 2012 batch (S12).
How much venture capital did Zapier raise before reaching profitability?
Zapier raised just $1.3 million in seed funding in 2012 from Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ, and angels, reaching sustained cash-flow profitability by 2014 without raising another primary round.
Why is Zapier celebrated as a pioneer of remote-first company culture?
Following YC in late 2012, the founders decided against an expensive Bay Area lease, establishing Zapier as a 100% distributed remote workforce across dozens of countries from day one.
What famous program did Zapier launch to attract remote talent in 2017?
Zapier offered a viral '$10,000 de-location package' to help Silicon Valley tech workers cover moving costs if they relocated out of the expensive Bay Area to work remotely for Zapier.
When did Zapier reach a $5 billion corporate valuation?
In March 2021, Sequoia Capital and Steadfast Financial purchased secondary shares from early investors at a $5 billion valuation, highlighting Zapier's exceptional SaaS capital efficiency.
How did Zapier pivot into generative AI automation in 2023-2024?
Zapier launched AI Actions for OpenAI's GPTs, introduced Zapier Central for autonomous AI bots, and released Zapier Canvas to diagram and execute complex enterprise workflows.
How many web applications are integrated on Zapier's platform today?
Zapier hosts an industry-leading library of over 7,000 connected applications, enabling non-technical professionals to automate billions of manual tasks every month.
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