We started 2023 by closing our fiscal year and achieving hypergrowth — once again. We've surpassed 600 customers, increased our employee base by 22% year over year, opened our newest [office in Singapore](https://konghq.com/blog/news/kong-singapore-office)office in Singapore following rapid growth in the Asia Pacific region, and expanded meetups to 46 countries and more than 12,000 attendees.

### Growth

Growth has been and will remain Kong's focus. Not just Kong's growth, but the growth of the businesses that trust our API platform to manage and secure their API sprawl.

The growth of our developer community across our open source projects and the growth of the API industry as a whole have especially helped Kong. With these two trends, our cloud native API management platform, [Kong Konnect](https://konghq.com/products/kong-konnect)Kong Konnect, has become the central nervous system of the cloud and the ultimate API system of record.

The [Kong Community](https://konghq.com/community)Kong Community is as vibrant as ever, with many of our more than 190,000 members representing us [in speaking engagements](https://kccnceu2023.sched.com/event/1HyYx/story-of-our-transition-to-a-custom-kubernetes-operator-for-an-api-gateway-vincent-behar-ubisoft)in speaking engagements across the globe, serving on customer advisory boards, and gathering for [in-person meetups](https://konghq.com/blog/news/kong-meetups)in-person meetups.

But the partnerships we've developed with our users and customers go beyond conferences and meetups. They've enabled us — for the third year in a row — to be named a Leader in the [Gartner Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management](https://konghq.com/resources/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-api)Gartner Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management with the greatest Completeness of Vision.

*The global Kong Community has grown to over 190,000 members.*

### The first cloud-native and unified API platform for the API era

Last week during Kubecon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2023, we unveiled the release of [Kong Ingress Controller within Kong Konnect](https://konghq.com/blog/product-releases/kic-in-kong-konnect)Kong Ingress Controller within Kong Konnect. Kong Konnect now manages more than API gateways. This new integration turns it into the world's first unified end-to-end API management platform.

With a single-pane-of-glass view, Kong Konnect now offers comprehensive visibility and control over edge, cross-application, and in-application API gateways — regardless of whether they're deployed as a Kubernetes Ingress or through other means. And it's all managed as SaaS.

Since its inception, Kong Konnect has been growing [in adoption ](https://konghq.com/customers)in adoption at an accelerated pace. Its SaaS control plane makes it attractive and cost-effective to platform decision-makers while providing the fastest way for developers to use Kong Gateway. We're doubling down on Kong Konnect and rapidly [releasing new features](https://konghq.com/blog/product-releases/kong-konnect-april-graphql-support-secure-automation)releasing new features like GA of GraphQL enhanced support, secure automation, dynamic reports creation, and much more.

Our vision for Kong Konnect goes beyond a Saas deployment of our API management solution with enhanced features. The support for Kubernetes Ingress Controller is the first step in making Kong Konnect a unified SaaS connectivity platform. We have more to come until [The API Summit by Kong](https://konghq.com/conferences/kong-summit)The API Summit by Kong in September 2023, when we'll unveil groundbreaking innovations with huge benefits for our users and customers.

### API security

APIs have emerged as the [number one attack vector](https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/next-gen-infosec/api-attacks-threat-vector-2022/)number one attack vector, and they'll continue to become an attractive target for hackers.

Common risks like compromised credentials, malicious insiders, incomplete or poor encryption, and API misconfiguration (to name a few) can leave organizations exposed to security breaches. That's why API security is a must at three different levels: encryption, authentication and authorization, and threat prevention.

While Kong has been providing the first two levels for many years, Kong customers can now benefit from our recent [partnership with Imperva](https://konghq.com/blog/news/imperva-kong-cybersecurity)partnership with Imperva to secure their APIs against threats, in addition to many other API security solutions that integrate with Kong as a standard for API management. The Imperva API Security plugin is our latest addition and is now available via the [Kong Plugin Hub](https://docs.konghq.com/hub/imperva/imp-appsec-connector/)Kong Plugin Hub. Together, Kong and Imperva ensure that APIs are comprehensively secured from security attacks.

Speaking of security, [Kong Mesh 2.2](https://konghq.com/blog/product-releases/kong-mesh-and-kuma-2-2)Kong Mesh 2.2 was released earlier this month and continues to offer enhanced [zero trust security](https://konghq.com/solutions/zero-trust-security)zero trust security to organizations deploying distributed microservice architectures and looking to secure and observe service-to-service connectivity. In addition, Kong Mesh integrates natively with Kong Gateway for edge and server-client use cases.

*Marco Palladino, Kong CTO and co-founder, *[*talks about how an API vision can transform a business*](https://youtu.be/SaPuSXe0JLs)*talks about how an API vision can transform a business**.*

### More AI, more APIs

The more AI there is, the more APIs we'll get as APIs are the primary interface for AI — not the browser. Furthermore, as demonstrated by OpenAI's API plugin support, APIs power AI models giving them the ability to enrich themselves with current knowledge, and more importantly, to perform actions.

But there's more to AI and APIs than exponential growth. AI can and will have a role in API management, and Kong will bring the first use cases to continuously improve developer productivity in auto-documenting endpoints and auto-suggesting improvements to specs with our upcoming release of Kong Insomnia. Stay tuned!

*Kong’s 2023 API Summit is scheduled for September 27-28.*

### The API Summit by Kong

The excitement for what's still to come in 2023 is real. While we're waiting to unveil our next big innovation, we're preparing for [Kong's 2023 API Summit](https://konghq.com/conferences/kong-summit)Kong's 2023 API Summit on September 27-28. Our annual summit is where the API community can get together to discuss the latest Kong innovations and customer use cases that enable the API world.

So as a concluding note, I'm inviting you to save the date and [submit](https://konghq.com/conferences/kong-summit/call-for-proposal)submit to present your innovative API platform, your digital apps, and your experiences to the Kong community of API developers, operators, and platform and engineering leaders in attendance. We're looking forward to seeing the APIs of tomorrow.