Architects play a critical role in software development. They are often responsible for technology decisions at a higher level than the software engineers - and these decisions have a major impact, whether it be on a specific application or sometimes throughout an entire organization.

From talking to many startups, we know that the "architect" role may not be one that's hired early. Founders - specifically CTOs and heads of engineering - are typically taking on the role of designing systems and implementing the technology stack. However, as a company scales and builds out its enterprise solutions, things like security, reliability, compliance, and other factors become increasingly important, and the need for standardization becomes apparent. 

And while systems architects are typically focused on a specific application or project, we've seen the enterprise architect play an increasingly important role, as their scope and perspective often needs to span the entire organization. These startups should be on the radar of enterprise architects due to their company-wide impact.

Ardoq

Ardoq is a data-driven platform that unites disparate enterprise views, charting a clear path to navigate change, unlock revenue growth, fuel innovation, and accelerate transformation. Their software enables organizations to look into and predict the potential effects of change on different sectors, including strategy, projects, human resources, processes, applications, infrastructure, and capabilities.

One of the most beloved features of using Ardoq is that it reduces the need for documentation. Instead, users are provided with insights through various interactive visualizations, dashboards, and diagrams that enable the enterprise architect to see the interactions between technology and individuals. Overall, it is a rock-solid product that can handle complex architectures and compliance concerns.

Amberflo

Amberflo raised $15 million in Series A funding last year and has continued to innovate and evolve with the rise of Generative AI. Founded by ex-AWS general Manager Puneet Gupta, the company has believed since its inception that the world of software needs to move away from inflexible and static subscription pricing towards a more value-driven and dynamic usage-based model.

This belief has only been solidified further with the rise of Generative AI. There isn't a software company out there that isn't at least discussing how to leverage GenAI, both internally to improve velocity and developer experience, as well as externally to potentially improve the customer experience.

This company seems to have been in the perfect place at the perfect time, now helping companies around the world with the "last mile" problem of AI adoption - monetization. Enterprise architects would be keen to evaluate building usage metering into their applications and services from inception, so that as Generative AI continues to rise there's a clear way to track usage and charge accordingly for a profitable business model.

Wing

Wing launched out of stealth with $20 Million in funding from big-name investors last year. They have a well-decorated founder, Elad Ben-Israel (CEO), who is the creator of the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) and other popular open-source projects in the infrastructure space and who has recently been recognized as one of the most innovative CEOs in 2024.

Their mission is extremely ambitious: To change how cloud applications are built in the cloud. Their new open-source programming language, Winglang, already has thousands of stars on GitHub and promises to save developers from many of the frustrations of building cloud applications. Their stated mission is to unify cloud infrastructure and application code into a single programming model that works across AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, serverless, and more.

Enterprise Architects need to evaluate the Wing platform and toolkit to understand the benefits of a new programming model that abstracts away a lot of the gritty details of building applications on top of cloud infrastructure. By letting developers build fast and focus on the business logic, while simultaneously giving operations teams control of the platform, Wing is positioned to help companies actually realize the promises of DevOps.

Gravitee

Gravitee is a solution that needs to be evaluated by any enterprise architect wanting a way to design, secure, and overall manage APIs across the organization. It gives developers safe and standardized ways of exposing their APIs, enabling other developers throughout the organization to seamlessly consume them with a top-notch developer experience, while adding a governance layer to ensure APIs are used within the parameters set by the architecture team. 

Depending on the size of the organization, there can be thousands to tens of thousands of APIs needed to run a modern business in the cloud. Given the role the enterprise architect plays in addressing concerns at a strategic level that can impact the entire organization, the ability to consolidate the sprawl and enable easy and secure access will be a game-changer for any business utilizing an 'API First' strategy.

Axiom

Axiom is a young company and information on them is limited. We know that Nat Friedman has invested and that it's already disrupting log management tools like Splunk. The company has also added a native solution for distributed tracing with its eyes set on metrics to complete the trio of observability telemetry.

But what should catch the eye of enterprise architects here is not that Axiom is yet another modern observability solution. It's the way this company is changing how companies think about architecting their applications and storing and pipelining their data. 

Data is already cumbersome without having to copy it for each individual tool you are using across your tech stack - each with its different requirements and retention policies. With Axiom's native pipelining solution, companies can keep 100% of the data for long retention and search within Axiom, and then choose what percentage to send out to other existing tools for better security and cost management. This seems particularly interesting for companies interested in AI and machine learning, given all of the data can live in a central place over long stretches of time.

Conclusion

Enterprise architects have a big role to play across organizations looking to modernize and secure their company's tech stack and applications, while continuing to enable innovation and velocity simultaneously. The sheer amount of data and complexity that needs to be navigated, combined with the inevitable rise of artificial intelligence, will only make this role more important - CTOs and CISOs will look to architects more than ever to collaborate on how to build effective digital businesses in the modern world.

These five startups can help.