AutomatedQA

SmartBear Software

Company type	Private
Industry	Information technology, Software
Founded	2009
Headquarters	Somerville, Massachusetts , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Frank Roe (CEO)
Products	Application performance monitoring, software development, software testing, API testing, API management, SoapUI, Swagger API
Owner	Francisco Partners (majority stake)
Website	https://smartbear.com

SmartBear Software is a privately owned American company specializing in information technology, offering solutions for application performance monitoring (APM), software development, software testing, API testing, and API management. The company’s headquarters are located in Assembly Square, Somerville, Massachusetts. SmartBear was established in 2009 following Insight Venture Partners’ acquisition of SmartBear, AutomatedQA, and Pragmatic Software.

History and founding

The initial incarnation of Smart Bear was created by entrepreneur Jason Cohen in 2003. Between 2007 and 2009, Insight Venture Partners purchased Smart Bear along with AutomatedQA and Pragmatic Software. These entities operated under the name AQA Holdings until they were rebranded as SmartBear Software in 2010.

After adopting the SmartBear name, the company pursued growth through acquisitions: in 2011, it acquired Eviware, bringing on Ole Lensmar—the creator of SoapUI—who subsequently took on the role of CTO. That same year, SmartBear also purchased AlertSite, a provider specializing in APM solutions. In 2013, the firm expanded further by acquiring Lucierna, a Spanish APM vendor.

SmartBear enhanced its API offerings by acquiring the Open-Source Swagger project in 2015. Tony Tam, Swagger’s founder, joined the company as the head of product management for Swagger and SwaggerHub. The following year, SmartBear bought CrossBrowserTesting.com (CBT), with its founder Ken Hamric becoming general manager.

In 2017, private equity firm Francisco Partners secured a majority ownership stake in SmartBear Software to support its ongoing expansion and innovation initiatives.

AutomatedQA

AutomatedQA Corporation was a company focused on automated software testing tools and developer utilities. Established in 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada, its debut product was AQtime—a binary instrumentation profiler designed to optimize applications compiled with Microsoft and Borland tools—released in November 1999. The company introduced TestComplete, its automated testing platform, in December 2000. In 2004, AutomatedQA launched Automated Build Studio, which provided automated build management and continuous integration capabilities. AQtrace was released in June 2008. AutomatedQA received the SD Times 100 award on three occasions, including recognition in 2008 for its leadership and innovation within the industry.

From 2007 until being fully merged into SmartBear Software in 2010, AutomatedQA functioned as an independent subsidiary.

Company

SmartBear’s main office is situated within the Greater Boston Area. It maintains additional U.S. locations in Tennessee and Florida along with international development centers across Ireland, India, Finland, Poland, Melbourne (Australia), and Sweden. Frank Roe assumed the role of CEO in March 2020.

The company’s suite of products spans API lifecycle management, automated testing solutions, behaviour-driven development (BDD), test management systems, performance testing for software applications, mobile testing tools, monitoring services, code review utilities, and includes prominent open-source projects such as SoapUI and Swagger API.