Lightrun Raises $23M to Revolutionize Debugging & Observability

Lightrun Secures $23 Million in Series A Funding

Lightrun, a company specializing in live production code debugging solutions, has announced the successful completion of a $23 million Series A funding round. The investment was spearheaded by Insight Partners, with continued participation from Glilot Capital Partners, who previously led the company’s $4 million seed funding.

Focus on Developer Experience

Lightrun differentiates itself within the competitive monitoring landscape by prioritizing the needs of developers, rather than solely focusing on IT operations teams. The platform empowers developers to debug production code directly from their Integrated Development Environments (IDEs).

Developers can instrument code for monitoring with minimal effort, but the core benefit lies in Lightrun’s “ops-free” approach. This methodology grants developers greater control over the monitoring process.

Shifting Observability Left

This “shift-left” strategy represents a departure from traditional, operations-centric tools such as Splunk and New Relic. It integrates application monitoring directly into the developers’ familiar workspaces.

According to Ilan Peleg, co-founder and CEO of Lightrun, the observability market has historically catered to IT operators. When service disruptions occur, operators utilize established systems management interfaces to restore functionality.

However, developers facing bug notifications often encounter a situation akin to an initial crime scene investigation – lacking clear suspects or substantial evidence.

Current Capabilities and Future Expansion

Currently, Lightrun’s service provides support for Java and the IntelliJ development environment. The company intends to broaden its reach by incorporating support for Python and Node.js.

Further expansion plans include compatibility with additional IDEs, enhancing the platform’s versatility.

Insight Partners’ Perspective

Teddie Wardi, Managing Director at Insight Partners, highlighted Lightrun’s unique approach to observability. He stated that incorporating observability into the daily developer workflow is the key benefit of shifting observability left.

Wardi believes Lightrun offers a more streamlined, real-time, and developer-friendly experience compared to existing platforms. He anticipates significant market capture among enterprises prioritizing rapid feature development and frequent deployments.

Recent Developments and Customer Base

Lightrun recently launched a free community edition of its service. They also introduced new integrations with popular tools including Datadog, IntelliJ IDEA, Logz.io, Prometheus, Slack, and StatsD.

Notable customers of Lightrun include Taboola, Sisense, and Tufin.

Future Growth and Investment

Over the past year, Lightrun has doubled its workforce. The newly acquired funding will be allocated towards expanding the developer community and strategic hiring across various departments.

The company also intends to strengthen its presence within the United States market.