vFunction Unveils the First and Only Platform Purpose-Built for Automated, Intelligent and Scalable Cloud Native Modernization

Emerging from stealth this week, vFunction announces the first and only platform purpose-built to automatically, efficiently, and intelligently transform complex, monolithic Java applications into microservices with a scalable, repeatable factory model. vFunction also announces $12.2M in seed funding. Following the pre-seed by Engineering Capital, Shasta Ventures and Zeev Ventures led the round with participation from Engineering Capital and Khosla Ventures. vFunction was cofounded by experienced serial entrepreneurs CEO, Moti Rafalin, CTO, Amir Rapson, and Systems Architect, Ori Saporta, following the acquisition of their previous company, WatchDox, by Blackberry in 2015.

Many of today’s enterprises rely on legacy Java applications to power their businesses, but face an urgent mandate to move to the cloud as quickly as possible in order to retain competitive market positioning, innovate their businesses and respond to unexpected events like COVID-19. Over time, these enterprises have amassed huge backlogs of 100’s and even 1000’s of legacy monolithic Java applications to modernize, which hampers business transformation initiatives and creates drag on IT departments. As a result, development velocity has continually decreased as these applications require substantial manual maintenance, expensive licensing, critical changes, and on-going enhancements to retain their business value. Manual modernization tools and projects are slow, costly and ineffective, and modernization strategies such as “lifting and shifting” and containerization without breaking into microservices yield limited benefits. Adding to the complexity, these enterprises often lack the resources and skills to modernize their enterprise applications.

Introducing the vFunction Platform 

vFunction is the first and only cloud modernization platform that enables the enterprise to modernize legacy Java applications and realize the true benefits of the cloud: elasticity, reduced cost, and restored engineering velocity. By combining dynamic analysis, static analysis, data science and automation, the vFunction platform is able to extract any service from a monolith and transform it into a compilable, working microservice. Unlike generic profiling tools and expensive consulting projects, the vFunction platform provides a repeatable, automated factory model purpose-built for scalable cloud native modernization, while eliminating inhibitors to modernization: including time, cost, risk and skills. vFunction helps enterprises achieve: 

• Scale: vFunction enables IT teams to rapidly scale their modernization initiatives, with a repeatable self-service factory model: monoliths in, microservices out. Prior to refactoring, vFunction assesses the complexity of hundreds of legacy apps in production then prioritizes which applications to modernize first. vFunction then estimates schedules, and manages the modernization process, including the actual auto-extraction of microservices into separate compilable projects. vFunction includes a Modernization Factory Dashboard and Application Complexity Assessment feature that allow enterprises to prioritize, manage, control, measure and track enterprises’ full modernization process from start to finish.  
• Built for Cloud Native: vFunction is designed for microservice extraction, creation and deployment to Kubernetes or any cloud native platform. vFunction helps IT teams optimize workflows and improve the software architecture. vFunction also detects and eliminates code that is no longer executed, reducing dead code, security issues, risk and unnecessary maintenance.
• Modernize Faster, Save Money: vFunction’s automated domain-driven processes accelerate manual refactoring by 10x and save $300-500K+ per app. vFunction delivers engineering and business velocity that is not possible with manual methods. 

“We spent over three years perfecting the vFunction technology to ensure we were helping our customers unlock the true value of the cloud for the 80% of the workloads that aren’t yet cloud native,”  said Moti Rafalin, CEO and Co-founder, vFunction. “vFunction provides developers, CTOs and system architects the opportunity to increase business and engineering velocity, by enabling and accelerating enterprises’ journey to cloud-native architecture, without the steep time commitment, high cost and significant risk associated with the modernization approaches that exist today.” 

Partnerships

vFunction has partnered with leading Systems Integrators to accelerate cloud native modernization projects for customers, including HCL Technologies, Tata Consulting Services, and Wipro. vFunction also partners and integrates with leading cloud native platforms including Red Hat OpenShift. 

Quotes
“vFunction’s technology takes what was once a daunting, manual, modernization task that could take months to complete, and reduces that to a matter of hours. vFunction helps developers and system architects deliver on the real value of the cloud – value that “lift and shift” methods don’t solve, as these methods don’t allow for real cloud benefits.”  — Ashmeet Sidana, Founder and Chief Engineer of Engineering Capital  

“vFunction created a platform that not only accelerates and automates the transformation of monoliths into microservices but also is enabling us to bring this project at scale, providing us visibility and control over a large application modernization pipeline.” — Nicola Carotti, Head of Cloud & Hybrid Datacenter, Intesa Sanpaolo
“vFunction is a very unique product for refactoring monolithic applications, as it tracks the execution path of the application during runtime and uses its Machine Learning Algorithms to extract services from a monolithic application, recommending and creating the new microservices. In fact, every single processing step of this tool is very agile and accurate. Would strongly recommend vFunction for carving out mini/micro services from your monolith application quickly and accurately.”  — Ashok Kumar Saravanan, Practice Head, Legacy Modernization, Wipro Technologies

“Application modernization remains the key challenge for enterprises as they embrace cloud-native architectures and processes. vFunction is designed to accelerate, automate and simplify the job of refactoring Java apps as microservices, helping teams systematically reduce technical debt.” — James Governor, Co-Founder and Analyst, RedMonk

Availability and Pricing  The vFunction platform is currently available, is running in production at leading enterprises and is based on a per-app pricing model. To schedule a trial and learn more, contact info@vfunction.com.