Lightbend has announced the launch of Akka Serverless, a developer platform that sets a new standard for cloud-native application development. The launch of Akka Serverless highlights a renewed focus for Lightbend on supporting developer needs for building cloud-native services and APIs.

With this strategic shift in mind, Jonas Bonér, Lightbend’s iconic CTO and founder, inventor of the Akka Project, and co-author of the Reactive Manifesto has also taken the helm of Lightbend as CEO.

Akka Serverless is based on a new architecture that removes the historical limitations that prevented the development of general-purpose, business-critical applications using the serverless model, enables the creation of cloud-native apps using any programming language, and eliminates the need for databases in deploying business-critical applications.

According to the company, Akka Serverless is delivered via a model similar to existing serverless offerings, but it is the first (and currently only) service to provide the ease of use inherent in the current serverless model combined with the capability to build business-critical stateful applications. Akka Serverless delivers these capabilities through a declarative API-first polyglot programming model allowing the developer to focus solely on the business logic.

Pioneering a new distributed state model, Akka Serverless delivers increased velocity for the business in an extremely cost-effective manner with existing developers and serverless cloud infrastructure.

Akka Serverless is currently in open beta, with general availability later this year.