WayScript Raises $5M to Advance Rapid Application Development

There's growing demand for services and tools that can help developers build applications more rapidly. Among the vendors active in the rapid application development space is New York-based startup WayScript, which announced on Aug. 11 that it raised a $5 million round of funding.

WayScript provides a cloud-based service that enables developers to take scripts and other pieces of code to assemble applications. It's a space that is sometimes referred to as low-code or no-code, though that's not how Jesse Orshan, WayScript’s co-founder and CEO, is positioning his company.

"Our sort of North Star guiding philosophy with this product is to always let developers get under the hood," Orshan told ITPro Today.

Low-code and no-code platforms are useful for businesspeople and entrepreneurs who want to get things done very quickly, Orshan said. With WayScript, code is still a foundational component, using common languages including Python, Java and JavaScript. He noted that WayScript provides user-friendly components to help developers with some of the time-consuming elements of application development. Developers can still bring in their own code and then benefit from WayScript's tooling.

"We shy away from calling ourselves a low-code platform; our focus is on rapid development," Orshan said. "We're all about how you take that Java code that you have running on your computer and rapidly turn it into an application that's triggered based on Salesforce receivable events or anything like that."

How WayScript Works

A key part of the WayScript platform is an event-based trigger system — when one event occurs, the system will execute a specific action. For example, every time new data is added to a database, a script can execute to trigger a workflow automation action to do something with that data.

"We create this sort of scaffolding architecture that makes triggering and maintaining APIs and different pieces like that much simpler," Orshan said. "Then we also create a layer where the developers can actually deploy and manage those tools."

For application development, WayScript integrates its own built-in integrated development environment (IDE) that works within a user's web browser. There are also prebuilt modules for common actions as well as integrations with different services including common databases and APIs to help developers rapidly build applications.

Users of WayScript have used the rapid application development platform to build a variety of applications, according to Orshan. A common use case for the platform is to build tools that complement a core application.

"We've also had users build entire applications like Slack bots that look up inventory information and return that information to customers," Orshan said.

More Collaboration in the Works

Looking forward, Lane Eden, WayScript's other co-founder, said a big focus for his company this year is increasing collaboration tools.

Users can now share scripts with people, and there is also a public marketplace where people can publish scripts and download other people's scripts, Eden said. The plan is to build out team features that enable groups within an organization to work better together.

"The eventual goal [is] a Google Docs level of collaboration, where people can in real time collaborate on scripts together," he said.