U.S.-based web and mobile testing tech provider BrowserStack has acquired Requestly, a YCombinator-backed startup known for its open-source HTTP interception and API mocking tool.
The acquisition aims to address critical bottlenecks in modern web development by integrating advanced HTTP interception, debugging, and mocking capabilities into BrowserStack’s suite of developer tools, both firms clarified, while declining to disclose any financial details.
Requestly enables front-end developers to manage network requests without relying on backend teams to complete APIs, a common challenge that often results in blocked sprints and delayed releases.
The tool, which operates as a browser extension, offers zero-configuration setup and seamless integration into existing workflows, allowing developers to intercept, modify, and mock HTTP requests directly in the browser.
Sachin Jain, the founder of Requestly, described the acquisition as “a natural progression” for the platform.
“Requestly was born from our own frustration of wasted developer hours due to broken workflows in end-to-end testing,” Jain explained. “Joining BrowserStack means we can maintain our core values while accelerating our roadmap to address more developer pain points.”
Since its inception in 2018, Requestly has evolved from a simple JavaScript redirect tool to a comprehensive HTTP interception and mocking solution, boasting a user base of over 200,000 developers across 10,000 companies.
Ritesh Arora, the chief executive and co-founder of BrowserStack, emphasised the strategic importance of the acquisition.
“What drew us to Requestly was its innovative browser-native approach and its passionate developer community,” he explained. “We’re excited to accelerate Requestly’s disruption of the API mocking space while preserving its open-source foundation.”
The acquisition comes as Requestly plans to expand its capabilities to mobile platforms, including Android emulators and iOS simulators.
The platform will continue to operate as an open-source tool, with BrowserStack’s resources fuelling further development and enterprise-grade features, such as SOC2 Type II certification and advanced team collaboration capabilities.
Bitrise deal
BrowserStack is one of the most-used software testing firms in the banking and financial services space, particularly across North America. Among its prominent finserv clients are Wells Fargo, Capital One, Stripe and Mastercard.
The firm, which is venture capital-backed and was recently valued at around $4 billion, has been profitable since its inception.
Only recently the company struck a partnership with London-based Bitrise, a mobile DevOps platform, aimed at giving mobile app testing a shot in the arm.
More specifically, the collaboration was aimed at improving mobile app quality assurance.
A host of banking clients and other financial services platforms are expected to embrace the enhanced capability, as they increasingly offer most of their traditional banking services via digital platforms and mobile applications.
“As mobile app development becomes increasingly complex, development teams face mounting challenges in ensuring test coverage across a wide array of devices, operating systems, and configurations,” explained Aggarwal.
He claimed that this new collaboration “helps solve this by allowing teams to run thousands of tests simultaneously across different devices, streamlining the testing process and enabling faster, higher-quality releases.”
Founded in 2014 in London, Bitrise is backed by investment firms Insight Partners and Y Combinator. It is a mobile DevOps platform that supports a host of different companies and brands, mostly in financial services, retail and e-commerce.
Its “full-stack platform unites mobile development tools, processes, and testing frameworks, enabling engineering teams to deliver mobile experiences,” the company states on its website. Bitrise claims its testing platform is used by over 400,000 developers worldwide.
As part of the deal, the collaboration between BrowserStack and Bitrise also means both entities will work to drive innovation in mobile development by combining their expertise integration/continuous deployment and cloud-based testing.
2024 was a busy year for the company with a range of product launches. It most recently developed and launched a new test automation platform that is low code based as the firm is increasingly focuses on automation because software teams face critical challenges, Aggarwal explained.
He singled out issues such as slow manual testing cycles bottleneck releases and traditional automation tools like Selenium require steep learning curves with long ramp-up periods before showing ROI.
For that reason, many financial organisations and other firms struggle with a shortage of automation engineers while talented testers lack coding skills, he added.
“AI is further revolutionising how test automation is done,” he continued, so “low-code automation eliminates these barriers, enabling to create and maintain AI-driven automated tests without code.”
In fact, Aggarwal went on to claim that “with low code automation, we’re transforming how teams approach quality assurance, [because] by empowering everyone to create automated tests, we’re enabling a true culture of quality.”
He was keen to point out that the platform stands out because of its “intuitive test recorder with no learning curve”, which can build tests in minutes by interacting with webapps in a browser.
Bird Eats Bug buy
BrowserStack, which is venture capital-backed, has been on somewhat of a shopping spree in recent years.
The company’s latest buy, Bird Eats Bug in August of 2024, marked BrowserStack’s fifth acquisition since Percy, a visual testing platform, in 2020.
Bird Eats Bug is a bug reporting platform based in Berlin. BrowserStack is currently in the process of integrating Bird Eats Bug’s capabilities into its existing QA ecosystem, culminating in the launch of Bug Capture, a new solution for manual testing.
Arora said that “by integrating Bug Capture’s approach to bug reporting into our platform, we’re not just streamlining workflows; we’re boosting development teams’ productivity so they can focus more on building great products and less on managing the intricacies of the testing process.”
Current software development suffers from inefficiencies in bug-reporting processes. Bug Capture allows teams to debug issues 30% faster on average, he claimed.
Arora said the key features include instant replays, screen recording, and auto-captured technical logs, such as console and network logs, system details, and steps to reproduce, “all consolidated into one clean bug report.”
“These features work in harmony to eliminate the need for extensive back-and-forth between testers, product managers, developers, support teams, and customers,” Arora concluded.
New solution
The acquisition of Requestly comes only a month after BrowserStack rolled out a new solution called Private Devices, a new tool aimed at enterprises with high-security testing requirements.
The offering provides access to customised real devices housed in secure data centers, enabling persistent configurations and advanced testing capabilities, ideal for multinational banks, insurance firms, healthcare companies, pharmaceuticals and other companies that hold and process large amounts of sensitive data.
With over 50,000 customers worldwide, BrowserStack said this latest addition addresses critical pain points in enterprise testing, including device availability, security compliance, and complex maintenance.
Features of Private Devices include guaranteed device access, persistent setups, UDID targeting, and fixed SIMs for testing user-device authorization.
“With Private Devices, we’re giving large enterprises the control and resources they need for secure, flexible, and efficient testing,” explained Nakul Aggarwal, CTO of BrowserStack.
The latest launch comes only weeks after BrowserStack rolled out a new test platform that is capable of running tests across 20,000 devices and 3,5000 browser-desktop combinations by using a host of AI agents.
The solution is designed for QA teams at large entities, such as banks and international financial services firms, to combine a host of different testing models into one platform, thereby removing fragmentation, cutting costs, and aiming to improve productivity.
Currently, BrowserStack claims its test platform processes over one billion tests yearly for seven million developers and testers across 135 countries.
Arora referred to a recent Forrester report, which found that development teams face a ‘DevOps tax’ of around 10%, meaning 10% of their team is dedicated solely to maintaining the DevOps toolchain.
Despite this, estimates reveal that release velocity has stayed the same over the past five years, highlighting the need for an integrated approach, he argued.
Arora pointed out that his new test platform offers infrastructure for browser and mobile testing through the cloud and self-hosted setups, along with AI-driven test analysis, test orchestration, and “self-healing functions that improve automation return.”
In addition, he was keen to stress that the platform uses AI agents supported by a data store to guide testing, while offering testing across around 20,000 devices and 3,500 browser-desktop combinations with tools for accessibility and visual testing.
“From our SDK that enables zero-code changes to enterprise-grade security and compliance, private network testing capabilities, and unified test monitoring—every feature has been designed to eliminate friction from the testing process while maintaining the highest standards of security and reliability,” explained Aggarwal.
The platform also consolidates test and quality insights into a single view with quality metrics, test reporting, debugging, analytics, and AI-powered test management, he noted.
By next year, the platform aims to support over 30 testing products, Aggarwal said.
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