Blockspring

Blockspring built a platform that let non-developers pull data from hundreds of web APIs and data services directly into spreadsheets and other productivity tools. Its core interface was a single spreadsheet function (=BLOCKSPRING) plus add-ins for Google Sheets and Excel, with additional planned or delivered connections into tools such as Tableau and Slack. Typical uses included automated marketing and advertising reporting (for example from Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Google Analytics and YouTube), scraping and public-data retrieval, list building and lead enrichment for sales and recruiting, and populating dynamic landing pages and live websites [2][3][4][5].

The product also had a developer-facing side: engineers could author custom functions in R, Python, Ruby, PHP and JavaScript that were then callable from Google Sheets and Excel, and companies could expose internal databases and private services as Blockspring functions. An enterprise tier, Blockspring Enterprise, was positioned as a way for IT teams to extend existing business tools rather than build bespoke internal applications [3][5].

Blockspring was a Y Combinator Summer 2014 company headquartered in Los Angeles, California (TechCrunch described it as San Francisco-based at the time of its acquisition), with a team size of three listed by Y Combinator [2][7]. Coinbase acqui-hired the company in January 2019; the Blockspring product continued to be offered to existing and new customers at the time of the deal, and the service was finally shut down on December 29, 2022 [7][0][1][6].

Founding story

According to co-founder Paul Katsen, the effort began after he attended a YC Startup School event in Chicago and, the same night, discussed with a friend in San Francisco how difficult data visualization was; they built a tool that turned an uploaded CSV or spreadsheet into an interactive visualization. An early break came when a VP of data at a large publisher invited them to work on-site in New York and became their first enterprise customer. Katsen dates the company's start to 2014 in that interview, while Y Combinator lists a 2013 founding [4][2]. The three co-founders were long-time friends from Chicago and were motivated by friction they had observed between developers and end users: Paul Katsen as the sole engineer at a consulting firm, Jason Tokoph at a small tech startup, and Don Pinkus at Facebook [5].

Business model

Subscription software sold directly to end users and businesses, delivered as spreadsheet and productivity-tool add-ins on top of an API integration platform, with an enterprise offering (Blockspring Enterprise) for companies wanting to expose internal databases and private services [3][5]. Following the Coinbase acquisition the team joined Coinbase while the product continued to be offered to current and new customers [7].

Paid subscriptions. Google Workspace Marketplace reviewers cite a $15/month plan later increasing to $29/month, and TechCrunch reported pricing starting at $29 per month [3][7]. Subscriptions and prepaid credits were cancelled at shutdown, with prorated refunds for remaining time [0][1][6].

Traction

Y Combinator lists a team size of 3 [2]. The Google Workspace Marketplace listing shows 45K+ installs [3]. TechCrunch reported that Blockspring claimed to work with "thousands" of companies, and Crunchbase data cited by TechCrunch put total funding at $3.5 million from investors including SV Angel and Andreessen Horowitz [7]. Co-founder Paul Katsen described the final business as making money and growing, though smaller than the original ambition [4].

Latest developments

On December 29, 2022 Blockspring posted a shutdown notice on its website and status page: the website, all integrations and plugins, associated APIs, enrichments, reports and other data became inaccessible; active subscriptions and remaining credits were cancelled after that date and customers with time remaining received prorated refunds [0][1][6].