Zapier
iPaaS / workflow-automation platform. Founded 2011 by Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig, and Mike Knoop. YC S12. Profitable; raised limited capital; mostly bootstrapped.
Ravenna Relevance
Zapier is the densest founder-mafia source in the AI ITSM cap-table dataset:
- Halliday is ex-Zapier: Director of Engineering, AI (Nov 2023 – Jul 2024) + Director, Product (2021 – 2024) + Principal Engineer (2019 – 2022). 4+ years.
- Zapier is a Ravenna design-partner customer.
- 4 Zapier executives are personal Ravenna angels:
- Wade Foster — Co-founder & CEO
- Bryan Helmig — CTO/Co-founder
- Mike Knoop — Co-founder & board member (stepped back from day-to-day at Zapier in Jan 2025 — was Head of AI / President — to co-found and lead Ndea as Co-founder & CEO with François Chollet; remains a Zapier co-founder/board member) ^[updated-2026-06-07]
- Andrew Berman — Director of AI
This 4-exec angel concentration is denser than any other founder-mafia pattern in the existing 7 startup competitors. Even Console’s 12 operator-CEO Series A angels are spread across ~12 different companies; Ravenna has 4 from a single company.
Strategic Positioning vs Ravenna
Halliday’s public framing in interviews emphasizes that Zapier is workflow-as-glue (cross-app automation), while Ravenna is workflow-as-service-desk (ITSM-process automation). The two products do not yet directly compete, but Zapier is the most plausible adjacent disruptor / acquirer if it moves into ITSM. ^[inferred]