Chronosphere Raises $200M to Enhance Cloud-Native Monitoring

The Growing Complexity of Data Observability

Maintaining visibility into infrastructure performance, application error rates, and the successful delivery of crucial business data is increasingly challenging as organizations expand their cloud-native data usage. A startup focused on providing a scalable platform for managing this complexity has recently secured significant funding to accelerate its growth.

Chronosphere, a cloud-native monitoring platform established by former Uber engineers, has announced a $200 million Series C funding round, achieving a valuation exceeding $1 billion.

New Tools for Distributed Tracing

Concurrent with this funding announcement, Chronosphere is introducing a new suite of tools designed for distributed tracing. These tools will facilitate more precise observation and enable faster responses to network issues as they emerge.

Investment Details and Rapid Growth

General Atlantic spearheaded the investment round, with participation from Addition, Greylock, Lux Capital, and new investor Founders Fund. Notably, General Atlantic, Addition’s Lee Fixel, Greylock, and Lux Capital had previously invested in Chronosphere’s Series B round just nine months prior, in January of this year.

According to Martin Mao, Chronosphere’s co-founder and CEO, this funding round was proactive rather than driven by necessity. “We currently hold over 85% of our Series B funding and did not require additional capital,” he stated. “However, this decision was prompted by our substantial growth this year.”

The company’s revenue has experienced a tenfold increase in the past year, mirroring the broader expansion of data within the industry. Mao also noted a corresponding tenfold rise in demand.

Scaling the Team to Meet Demand

Despite the growth, the Chronosphere team size has remained consistent, necessitating strategic hiring to address the increasing demand. “This demonstrates the value our product provides to customers and the rapid adoption of cloud technologies,” Mao explained. “We aim to capture the market share as quickly as possible.”

To date, the 2.5-year-old company has raised a total of $255 million.

Origins at Uber and the M3 Project

Chronosphere was founded by Mao and Rob Skillington (CTO) based on their earlier work at Uber, where they developed a specialized observability platform tailored to Uber’s unique business requirements.

The core large-scale metrics storage technology they created was later open-sourced as M3. Following their departure from Uber, the two founders established Chronosphere to extend their concepts for cloud-native monitoring technology to a broader audience.

Addressing a Gap in the Market

They identified a specific market need: Uber had built its own observability platform to manage its complex microservices and containerized environment, mirroring the approach taken by larger companies like Google. However, Mao observed that “nothing on the market was specifically designed for this type of architecture” for wider use.

Their goal was to address the general challenges of cloud-native complexity by developing a comprehensive platform.

Early Traction and Key Customers

Since its general availability release in January, Chronosphere has gained traction with companies operating at a similar scale to Uber, such as DoorDash, which also utilizes a comparable architecture involving multiple cloud applications, on-demand services, and real-time analytics.

Additional customers include Cudo, a cryptocurrency mining platform; Genius Sports, a sports data provider; and Tecton, a machine learning application platform.

Expanding Capabilities with Distributed Tracing

The newly announced distributed tracing tools represent Chronosphere’s ongoing commitment to expanding the applications of its monitoring technology. These tools will provide users with more detailed alerts regarding workflows, including root cause analysis, and empower engineers – even those without specialized data science expertise – to perform advanced analytics on their datasets.

Compatibility and Competitive Landscape

While the co-founders continue to maintain M3, Mao clarified that Chronosphere’s platform can operate independently. It is designed for organizations whose data needs have surpassed the capabilities of Prometheus, another monitoring and alerting solution often used with M3.

In terms of competition, Mao identifies Datadog as “the 800-pound gorilla in the room.”

This underscores the importance of continued rapid development and market share acquisition – and securing further investment.

General Atlantic’s Perspective

“Chronosphere is purpose-built to address the needs of large modern cloud-native enterprises,” stated Anton Levy, co-president, MD and head of technology investing at General Atlantic. “Positioned at the convergence of key trends in infrastructure software – the growth of open-source and the adoption of containers – Chronosphere has rapidly emerged as a transformative player in observability. We are impressed by the team’s ambitious vision, with distributed tracing being another solution that sets Chronosphere apart as a next-generation leader and supports its continued expansion.”