WSO2, which offers low-code tools to help businesses, hospitals, schools, and public sector organizations build apps, raises $90M from Goldman Sachs
Amid a tech-talent crunch, the Wall Street bank is eyeing a growing market for do-it-yourself app builders that put development into the hands of business-line employees Source: WSO2 .
Context & Ripple Effects
WSO2's $90M round lands mid-way through a funding wave for low-code app builders: OutSystems raised $150M in February 2021, and Appsmith followed with a $41M Series B in June 2022 claiming thousands of monthly company users. The throughline is the tech-talent crunch — these tools move app development out of scarce engineering teams and into the hands of business-line staff at hospitals, schools, and public agencies.
For Goldman Sachs, this is a continuation of a pattern rather than a one-off bet: the bank previously led Sonatype's $30M software supply chain round, backed database security startup jSonar, and co-created Symphony, the Wall Street messaging platform. Goldman is steadily accumulating positions across the developer-tooling stack.
First-order effects
- WSO2 gets fresh capital to scale its low-code platform toward businesses, hospitals, schools, and public sector organizations precisely when those buyers cannot hire enough developers.
- Goldman Sachs deepens its developer-tooling portfolio, gaining direct exposure to the do-it-yourself app-building market it expects to grow.
Second-order effects
- OutSystems and Appsmith now compete against a rival with Goldman's balance sheet behind it, raising the stakes on enterprise deals where low-code vendors substitute for unfilled engineering headcount.
- Goldman's corporate relationships become a distribution asset: portfolio companies like WSO2 gain a warm path into the bank's enterprise client base, an advantage pure-play VC-backed rivals lack.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, major financial institutions shift from passive investors in developer tools to strategic kingmakers whose capital and client networks decide which low-code platforms consolidate the market.
- Sustained investment across OutSystems, Appsmith, and WSO2 points toward application development structurally migrating from IT departments to business-line employees, permanently changing who builds enterprise software.
The trend: Low-code platforms are absorbing large institutional rounds as enterprises respond to the developer shortage by letting non-engineers build their own applications.