Traceable AI (a Harness company)
API discovery, runtime protection, and API security testing built on distributed tracing, now integrated into Harness's software delivery platform after its 2025 acquisition.
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Traceable built its API security platform on distributed tracing rather than traditional signature or schema matching, letting it discover shadow and undocumented APIs, model normal data flows, and detect anomalous behavior indicative of business logic abuse, data exfiltration, or account takeover across an application’s full API surface. Its API security testing component shifted testing earlier into the development lifecycle rather than relying solely on runtime detection.
Prior to being acquired, Traceable raised more than $270 million from investors including Tiger Global, and built a customer base spanning financial services, healthcare, and technology companies concerned about API-specific attack paths that traditional WAFs miss. In 2025, Harness, a software delivery and DevOps platform company, acquired Traceable, and the product now operates as Traceable within Harness’s broader platform, extending Harness’s reach into runtime application and API security alongside its existing CI/CD and security testing tools.
Traceable’s tracing-based approach to API security was a genuine architectural advance over signature-based API gateways, and being folded into Harness gives it distribution through a larger DevOps platform, but as with any newly acquired product, its independent roadmap and go-to-market are now subordinate to its parent’s priorities.
Innovation Matrix Assessment
Extended from runtime API detection into pre-production API security testing before being acquired; further velocity now depends on integration into Harness's platform roadmap.
Distributed-tracing-based API discovery and anomaly detection catches business logic abuse and shadow APIs that signature-based WAFs typically miss, a real gap for API-heavy organizations.
More than $270 million raised pre-acquisition and the 2025 acquisition by Harness are concrete, independently reported momentum and validation signals.
Tracing-based API security is a meaningful technical approach, but API security is now a well-established, competitive category, and the company is folded into a larger DevOps platform.
A multi-year customer base in financial services and healthcare before acquisition suggests real production use, though independent third-party efficacy benchmarks were not found.
API-specific attacks continue to grow as API surfaces expand with microservices and AI integrations, keeping tracing-based API security relevant within Harness's broader platform.
Why CISOs Should Care
Discovers shadow and undocumented APIs and detects business-logic abuse that signature-based WAFs miss, now bundled with Harness's broader software delivery and security platform.
What Makes It Different
Distributed-tracing-based API discovery and anomaly detection instead of signature or schema matching, extending earlier into pre-production testing rather than only runtime protection.
The Matrix Verdict
62/100 — INCREMENTAL INNOVATOR
A technically solid API security platform whose independent trajectory has ended, now a component of Harness's broader DevSecOps offering.
Editorial Note: Claims vs. Verified Findings
Pre-acquisition funding figures and the Harness acquisition are independently reported; specific detection-accuracy claims are vendor-published.
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