PubNub's journey began in 2010, co-founded by Stephen Blum and Todd Greene. Initially a side project for Greene, with Blum leading the company, it transitioned into a full-time venture for both with their first angel investment round in 2012. The founders recognized a burgeoning need for real-time infrastructure to power interactive experiences, a vision that predated the ubiquity of apps like Uber and Slack which now exemplify such real-time engagement. They aimed to democratize the complex technology required for these experiences, making it accessible to all developers, not just those at large companies with dedicated infrastructure teams.
The company's core offering is a global Data Stream Network (DSN) and an easy-to-use API, designed to help developers build, scale, and manage real-time applications and IoT devices. This platform provides the foundational building blocks for features like in-app chat, live audience engagement, multi-user collaboration, IoT device control, real-time data streaming, and geolocation services. PubNub's infrastructure is built for low latency and high reliability, boasting a 99.999% uptime SLA and message delivery in under 100 milliseconds worldwide across its 15+ data centers. This robust network supports a massive scale, reportedly processing over 1.9 trillion transactions per month for over 800 million monthly active users. Over the years, PubNub has secured significant funding, including a Series E round of $65 million in November 2021, bringing their total funding to over $130 million from prominent investors such as The Raine Group, Sapphire Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, Bosch, Ericsson, and HPE. This financial backing has enabled PubNub to continuously expand its platform and cater to a growing list of over 2,000 customers worldwide, including major names like Amazon, RingCentral, Gameloft, DAZN, eBay, Peloton, HubSpot, and Atlassian.