The Backplane

The Backplane, Inc. was a US social-network-builder startup (founded 2011) that built branded social networks for fan groups and organizations, most notably Lady Gaga's Little Monsters community, and later pivoted to the Place.xyz network-building platform. Backed by Battery Ventures, GV, Sequoia, Greylock and others, it raised roughly $18.9M before running out of money, going out of business in April 2016 and selling all of its assets (patents, code, trademarks, URLs). The company is defunct; enrichment found no live website, developer portal, API, specification, or SDK surface to catalog.

The Backplane is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, Social Network, Fan Community, Defunct, and Battery Ventures Portfolio.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

6.8/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5

0 APIs

CompanySocial NetworkFan CommunityDefunctBattery Ventures Portfolio

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5

Composite quality — 6.8/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 0.0 / 20

Commercial Clarity 0.0 / 20

Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13

Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 6.8 / 10

Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

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Source (apis.yml)

aid: the-backplane
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/the-backplane.png
name: The Backplane
description: The Backplane, Inc. was a US social-network-builder startup (founded 2011) that built branded social networks
  for fan groups and organizations, most notably Lady Gaga's Little Monsters community, and later pivoted to the Place.xyz
  network-building platform. Backed by Battery Ventures, GV, Sequoia, Greylock and others, it raised roughly $18.9M before
  running out of money, going out of business in April 2016 and selling all of its assets (patents, code, trademarks, URLs).
  The company is defunct; enrichment found no live website, developer portal, API, specification, or SDK surface to catalog.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/the-backplane/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- battery-ventures
x-tier: stub
x-tier-reason: portfolio-lead
x-status: defunct
x-status-note: Went out of business April 2016; assets sold. No live API surface.
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-21'
tags:
- Company
- Social Network
- Fan Community
- Defunct
- Battery Ventures Portfolio
apis: []
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-21'
  status: nochange
  artifacts_added: 0
  pass: local-v1