(Left to right) Andrew Burton, president and CEO, Logentries; Dr Trevor Parsons, chief research officer and co-founder, Logentries; and Dr Viliam Holub, CTO and co-founder, Logentries
University College Dublin (UCD) cloud spin-out Logentries has raised US$10m in a Series A financing led by Polaris Ventures, along with Floodgate, RRE Ventures and Frontline Ventures.
Logentries collects and analyses large quantities of machine-generated log data. Its technology works on the premise that the business and operational value of log data is found in specific, individual entries hidden within logs.
The company’s technology is used by more than 10,000 users in more than 100 countries, processing more than 20bn log events a day.
As well as the funding, the company has named Andrew Burton as president and CEO.
“The US$10m funding will be used to hire additional software engineers and developers in Dublin, helping to accelerate our product development efforts to make log entries simply accessible,” Logentries co-founder and chief research officer Dr Trevor Parsons told Siliconrepublic.com. “We also will use this funding to expand our sales and marketing operations worldwide.”
Founded in 2010, Logentries emerged from University College Dublin’s (UCD) Performance Engineering Laboratory after a decade of joint research with IBM. With support from Launchpad, UCD’s Nova Innovation Centre and financial support from Enterprise Ireland, Logentries was incubated in Dogpatch Labs, Dublin.
The skill in big data
Incubation at Dogpatch Labs provided the founders with an early opportunity to forge a unique relationship with Noel Ruane, Polaris’ European Venture partner, helping to guide and support them from early business formulation, initial seed funding, and on to an A-round investment.
“Logentries’ unique approach to delivering actionable intelligence from machine-generated log data utilising prefiltering and collective intelligence ensures quick time to value and makes machine data accessible to end users, regardless of their function or technical skill,” Ruane said.
Logentries lets customers focus on the data that matter most – the less than 1pc of log entries that contain the game-changing information that’s hidden among the other 99pc.
According to IDC, the volume of digital data is expected to reach 7.9trn gigabytes in 2015, with 90pc of digital data generated by machines. With the vast majority of this data is unstructured and velocity is expected to increase 30pc per year through 2015, creating a US$16.9bn market. Traditional approaches that require users to set up complex systems, learn advanced query languages and manually attempt to find important information are quickly becoming antiquated strategies.
“Logentries provides an easy-to-use and accessible solution for managing, analysing and understanding your log data,” Parsons explained
“Log data is the fastest-growing data source within small, medium and large organisations today and it can be applied for a range of use cases, including troubleshooting, monitoring, security and business analytics. While log data can contain powerful information, its raw format is not very intuitive, often difficult to access and, as even small systems can produce millions of events per day, it can be very difficult to find the actual information you’re looking for.”
The company is headquartered in Boston and has offices in Dublin and Prague. Parsons said it’s not an inevitable step for Irish firms to shift their headquarters to the US in order to enjoy growth.
“No it’s not inevitable – in fact I believe Dublin is a great location and has a vibrant ecosystem for nurturing early stage companies.
“In particular with co-working spaces like Dogpatch Labs, regular tech meet ups in locations like Engine Yard Dublin, as well as with US investors like Polaris and local investors like Frontline investing in that ecosystem. Dublin also has a lot of tech talent and is a great place to build out your technology.
“We continue to invest in and grow out our development, operations, R&D, technical support and international operations out of Dublin. We believe Dublin is not only a great place to start a company but also a great place to grow one, as well.”
