Sumo Logic — Continuous Intelligence For Modern Apps
By Jai Das, managing director, Sapphire Ventures and Anders Ranum, venture partner, Sapphire Ventures
An enterprise with 5000 servers and 125 applications across two to three data centers will typically generate 1.5 terabytes of data (one terabyte of unstructured data and half a terabyte of metrics data) every day. The amount of data generated scales linearly as an enterprise adds more servers. With the rapid adoption of public and hybrid clouds, along with the micro-service architectures of these modern applications, the volume, variety and velocity of machine data is actually growing exponentially.
This has created the need for an enterprise-grade cloud-native machine-data analytics platform that can predict, detect and help solve problems by churning through the piles of data being generated by servers and applications and translating this to understandable and relevant information, and actionable insights for DevSecOps teams.
We have been following Sumo Logic for the last few years as it evolved into an enterprise-grade cloud-native machine-data analytics platform for the new burgeoning DevSecOps teams that are managing the transition of enterprise infrastructure from data-centers to public and hybrid clouds. Today, we are happy to announce that Sapphire Ventures has led Sumo Logic’s latest $75M financing round and we are excited to partner with Ramin Sayar, CEO, Christian Beedgen, founder and CTO, and the awesome team at Sumo Logic.
One of the biggest trends in the enterprise IT landscape has been the growth of specialized cloud-native platforms in domains spanning customer relationship management (Salesforce), procurement (Ariba), human resources (Workday), IT service management (ServiceNow), helpdesk (Zendesk), content management (Box) and collaboration (Slack). Similarly, Sumo Logic has built a cloud-native platform for machine-data analytics and time-series metrics that helps DevSecOps teams run, manage and secure applications regardless of deployment options, such as AWS, Azure or hybrid cloud, and helps improve availability, performance and security of critical applications and IT infrastructure in real-time.
When we talk to CIOs, VPs of Cloud and Chief Digital Officers in our network it is clear that their companies are well on the path to becoming a digital business, where the growth of data is exponential, the desire to reduce innovation cycles is critical, extracting insights from bits and bytes has become a key differentiator and where software applications directly execute business strategy, delivering differentiated customer experiences in an ‘always-on’ constant fashion. We repeatedly hear how painful it is to effectively manage the deluge of data from devices, applications, platforms and infrastructure, and to effectively analyze and respond in real-time with insights and actionable information. Human generated data is experiencing an overall 10 times faster growth rate than traditional business data, and machine data is increasing even more rapidly. A new approach is required and this is where we believe Sumo Logic excels with its elastically-scalable, auto-learning (via machine-learning) cloud-native platform for continuous intelligence derived from all this machine data.
Sumo Logic’s platform provides DevSecOps teams with visibility across the entire infrastructure or application stack, surfacing both known and unknown anomalies; with the speed to investigate and resolve issues by collecting, centralizing and reducing millions of data streams into patterns, and revealing anomalies often in minutes or hours; with insights that become opportunities to improve application performance, brand and customers experience; and with the ability to operate and innovate in the cloud with security and confidence. This continuous intelligence about the business enables DevSecOps teams to help their enterprises accelerate their shift to continuous innovation and to increase competitive advantage, business value and growth.
Sumo Logic’s platform is not positioned as a single tool used by a single function, but rather as a central data platform for all types of data, that can be accessed by end users of varying roles and technical acumen and within the context of their specific requirements. The company is building partnerships with AWS, CrowdStrike, Google Cloud Platform, Heroku, JFrog, Microsoft Azure, MongoDB, New Relic, Pivotal and Trend Micro, among others, so that customers can easily feed data from their favorite IT tools into Sumo Logic. These partnerships help establish Sumo Logic’s platform as a central repository for IT operations data.
At Sapphire, we have backed many teams and companies that have been instrumental in transforming enterprises into digital-first and software-defined businesses. We believe that in Sumo Logic we have found another team that is accelerating this transformation of enterprises by providing continuous intelligence to the enterprise based on the machine-data being generated by its IT infrastructure. We have helped many of our portfolio companies expand internationally, increase their footprint in the Global 2000 enterprises and guide them to being global, category-defining leaders. We are looking forward to a similar journey with Ramin Sayar and his accomplished and focused team.
Disclosures
The opinions expressed here represent those of the author and not necessarily the views of Sapphire Ventures. The data contained herein have been obtained from sources believed reliable, but the accuracy of this information cannot be guaranteed.
Nothing presented herein is intended to constitute investment advice and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Ventures does not solicit or make its services available to the public.
The investment identified above does not represent all of the investments made or recommended by Sapphire Ventures, and was not selected based on the return on Sapphire Ventures’ investment in it. It should not be assumed that any current or future investments were or will be profitable. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
A complete list of Sapphire Ventures’ direct investments, as well as IPOs and M&A exits (denoted by an asterisk*), across our pooled investment vehicles is as follows and can be viewed here. Aepona*, Alfesco Software, Alteryx*, Apigee*, Apriso*, Black Duck Software, Box*, Catchpoint, Celarix*, CloudHealth Technologies, Connectiva*, Control4*, Convercent, Criteo*, Currency Cloud, Cyphort, Datria*, Docusign, DSSD*, Endeca*, ExactTarget*, Feedzai, Fitbit*, Five9*, FollowAnalytics, Gild, Groundwork*, IEX, Ignite Technologies*, Imprivata*, Inkling, Integral Ad Science, Iovation, Iron.io, iTAC Software*, iYogi, Jaspersoft*, JFrog, Jibe, JustDial*, Kaltura, Krux*, Lavante*, LeanData, Linkedin*, Lithium Technologies, Livongo, Localytics, LogLogic*, Looker, Marin Software*, Mirantis, Mulesoft*, Narrative Science, Newgen Software, Next Principles*, Nutanix*, OnDeck*, One97, Onventis, OpenX, Payscale*, Ping Identity*, PubNub, Qubit, QuMu*, Recommind*, Retail Solutions, Return Path, Right Hemisphere*, Savo, ScaleIO*, Scytl, Socrata, Splashtop, Spring Mobile Solutions, Square*, Sun Basket, Tealeaf Technologies*, Ticketfly*, Tidalscale, Tremor Video*, Vendavo*, Violin Memory*, Voxeo*, and Zend Technologies*.
