Observe Inc. Hails $115 Million Funding Round, Goes After Splunk

SaaS observability company Observe Inc. says Splunk, Datadog, New Relic and other rivals are squarely in its sights after securing $115 million in a new funding round led by Sutter Hill Ventures.

Existing investors Capital One Ventures and Madrona also participated, as did new investor Snowflake Ventures.

Observe claims 171% growth in annual recurring revenue during its 2024 fiscal year. The company also increased the size of its team by 50% in the past year.

Observe bases much of its success on its modern architecture built on the Snowflake data lake. It solves data problems posed by modern applications at a much lower cost, the company said.

Snowflake Ventures' Stefan Williams

“At Snowflake we believe there's no such thing as an AI strategy without a data strategy,” said Stefan Williams, VP, corporate development & Snowflake Ventures. “Observe recognized this from the outset and built a data company. Our team has worked closely with Observe as a partner since the company’s founding and with this investment, we’re bolstering that relationship and emphasizing our belief in Observe as the company enters its next stage of rapid growth.”

Furthermore, Observe sees this funding as timely since Splunk, Sumo Logic and New Relic − three major players in the space − are going through significant transitions. Cisco just closed on its acquisition of Splunk, while Sumo Logic and New Relic recently were gobbled up by private-equity firms.

Related:Cisco Closes $28 Billion Splunk Acquisition

Observe's Jeremy Burton

“Legacy monitoring and APM players, shackled by outdated architectures, are dead companies walking,” said Jeremy Burton, CEO at Observe. “As private equity or strategic acquirers strip them down for parts, Observe is taking a new approach designed for today’s modern distributed applications and massive data volumes. We’re thrilled to have investors who are thinking big and validating Observe’s approach in one of the fastest-growing segments in tech.”

While Observe doesn't yet sell through channel partners, the company will be one to watch.