Ross Mason

Mason’s parents were business owners; he has joked that at age seven he was already running a “bootleg” Lego club. He recalled that for many years as a child he wanted to be a Lego designer, and that after the family got a Commodore 16 computer his interest shifted to computers.⁠[1][1][2][2]

He earned a B.Sc. (Hons) in Computer Science in Bristol, UK, graduating in 1997.⁠[3][1]

He recalled that he had always worked for companies that needed to reliably integrate disparate IT systems; one of his jobs in the early 1990s was at an insurance company, connecting more than 100 sites over dial-up to collect reporting data. He later worked with NatWest, Credit Suisse, and UBSUBSUBS is a global financial group headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, operating wealth management, Swiss personal and corporate banking, asset management and investment banking. Its modern bank emerged from a 1998 merger, its holding company was incorporated in 2014, and it acquired Credit Suisse in 2023.Open the full entry.⁠[2][2][3]

He served as lead architect for RaboBank, playing a key role in developing one of the first large-scale enterprise service bus (ESB) implementations in 2002.⁠[4]

In 2003, frustrated by the repetitive “donkey work” of integration, Mason created the open-source Mule project, an enterprise service bus and integration framework that replaced repetitive coding with the assembly of components; the project started on SourceForge in April 2003, and the name Mule came from his desire to take the “donkey work” out of integration.⁠[4][4][2][1][5]

Before founding MuleSource, he was chief executive officer of SymphonySoft Limited, a European company providing services and support for large-scale integration projects.⁠[4]

On April 12, 2006, the company was incorporated in Delaware as Azechi, Inc., and in July of that year it changed its name to MuleSource, Inc.; Mason founded it on the basis of the Mule project he had created three years earlier and served as co-founder and chief technology officer. Ann Winblad, co-founder of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, joined the board in September 2006 as a designee of the Series A preferred stockholders.⁠[5][5][6][3][5][5]

Beginning in May 2007, Lightspeed Venture Partners’ initial and subsequent investments in MuleSource were led by Ravi Mhatre, the start of a relationship between Mason and Lightspeed that lasted more than a decade.⁠[7][7]

In August 2009, MuleSource changed its name to MuleSoft, Inc. Mason continued to speak publicly as CTO and founder; Mule was used by Citigroup, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, American Airlines, AdobeAdobeAdobe (Adobe Inc.) is a software company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. Known for PostScript, PDF and creative software such as Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects, it moved its main creative products to Creative Cloud subscriptions from 2013 and expanded into digital marketing and generative AI; it is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ADBE.Open the full entry, and other enterprises.⁠[5][8][3]

From at least 2013, Mason served as MuleSoft’s vice president of product strategy, responsible for product strategy, open-source involvement, engineering alignment, and direct engagement with customers. In a 2014 interview he said the Mule community had more than 150,000 developers serving 35% of the Fortune Global 500; he argued that companies should start by delivering data and functionality through APIs rather than simply moving systems to the cloud as they are.⁠[5][2][2][2]

During its pre-IPO financings, MuleSoft repeatedly used financing proceeds to repurchase common stock from stockholders including Mason, and he also participated in an August 2016 tender offer launched by certain stockholders and third parties. As of December 31, 2016, Mason beneficially owned about 6.69 million shares, or 5.9%. From 2013 to 2016, the company purchased professional and technical services from Ricston Ltd. and an affiliate; Mason held a 30% equity stake in Ricston Ltd.⁠[5][5][5][5]

On March 16, 2017, MuleSoft priced its initial public offering of 13 million shares of Class A common stock at $17 per share, above the expected range of $14 to $16, raising about $221 million; the shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MULE on March 17, and Mason rang the bell at the NYSE.⁠[9][9][10][10][1]

On March 20, 2018, Salesforce and MuleSoft entered into a definitive agreement under which Salesforce would acquire MuleSoft for an enterprise value of approximately $6.5 billion, to power the new Salesforce Integration Cloud. MuleSoft then had more than 1,200 customers, including Coca-Cola, BarclaysBarclaysBarclays is a banking and financial services group headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with Barclays PLC as its parent company. It traces its origins to a London goldsmith bank established in 1690 and developed through bank mergers, overseas expansion and investment banking reorganisations. Its businesses span UK retail and corporate banking, private banking and wealth management, global investment banking and US consumer banking.Open the full entry, Unilever, and Mount Sinai.⁠[11][11][11]

On May 2, 2018, Salesforce completed its exchange offer for MuleSoft shares at $36.00 in cash plus 0.0711 of a share of Salesforce common stock per share, then completed the merger; MuleSoft became a wholly owned subsidiary of Salesforce and was delisted from the NYSE.⁠[12][12][12]

That same year, Mason founded DIG Ventures with former MuleSoft UK sales lead Melissa KlingerMelissa KlingerMelissa Klinger is a British venture capitalist and a general partner at DIG Ventures, a London early-stage venture firm. She was formerly UK sales lead at the enterprise integration software company MuleSoft; after Salesforce acquired MuleSoft, she co-founded DIG Ventures with Ross Mason, and she specializes in helping technical founders build their go-to-market capabilities.Open the full entry, initially as his family office and later as a venture capital firm. After the acquisition he continued to advise MuleSoft on strategy while backing enterprise software founders as an angel investor.⁠[13][14][15][15]

In 2020, Mason was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute. As of 2021, he also served on the boards of Stackin’ and Syncari.⁠[7][1]

DIG Ventures Advisors Limited was incorporated in England on December 24, 2021, and Mason served as a director until January 28, 2022. He is a British national.⁠[16][16]

In April 2025, DIG Ventures closed its $100 million second fund, its first institutional fund. Mason said that after leaving MuleSoft he saw an opportunity to come back to Europe and build an operator-led fund; he sees enterprises building their own AI as the next big shift, with much of the technology becoming packaged open source because companies do not want to send their data to cloud-based large language models they cannot control.⁠[14][14][14][14]

On October 1, 2026, DIG announced the close of its $120 million third fund. Speaking as founding partner, Mason said that as development accelerates and differentiation erodes, the truly scalable, defensible companies will be those building the foundations of enterprise software, and that Europe is not short of technical talent but the challenge is turning technical advantage into global distribution.⁠[17][17][17][18]

Mason is the author of “First Break IT,” which explores the new methods companies need to adopt to drive innovation and stay relevant. He has been named one of the Most Important People in Cloud Computing by Business InsiderBusiness InsiderBusiness Insider is a digital business-news organization.Open the full entry, one of the world’s Top 10 Innovators and Influencers by Information Week, and a top 25 CTO by InfoWorld.⁠[7][7]

As of October 2026, he is also a London-based venture partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.⁠[7]

DIG Ventures: Official website: https://dig.ventures/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-mason/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]