The reign of the API is upon us.

Apigee Corp, the developer of API management tools that connect core IT infrastructure to applications, filed for an initial public offering on Friday, hoping to raise $86.3 million.

Though the Apigee IPO filing did not specify a valuation, the San Jose-based firm has reportedly targeted a $700 million valuation. Backed by $173 million in venture capital, Apigee reported revenue of $53 million for the year ended July 31 — up 22 percent from the year prior. Net losses were $61 million for the year, widening from losses of $26 million the year prior.

If you aren’t familiar with application programming interfaces (APIs), now is the time to study up. In simple terms, an API creates a bridge into databases and hardware, allowing developers to connect into them.

For example, in January, Equinix, the global interconnect service, began using Apigee Edge to give developers access to cloud services in its Global Cloud Exchange.

AT&T is Apigee’s largest customer, accounting for 15 percent of the company’s total revenue in fiscal 2014, according to the IPO filing.

The telco giant is using the Apigee Edge platform to manage and share select back-end network services with third-party developers. Since 2013, AT&T has also used the platform to manage APIs for its mission-critical activation system, which national reseller partners use to activate new mobile phones on the AT&T network.

But enterprise customers may represent the biggest opportunity for Apigee, which positions itself as the bridge between employee- and customer-facing applications and core IT infrastructure. In the IPO filing, Apigee names Oracle and IBM as its major established competition.

The capability to control IT infrastructure via APIs and software could radically alter the roles and responsibilities within enterprise IT departments, elevating DevOps skills over traditional forms of IT expertise, experts say.

“Our architecture is designed as a true platform technology,” Apigee says in the filing. “It is not just about managing APIs, but a technology stack that is itself built out of APIs.”