Sumo Logic in no Rush to List

According to an IDC research report, worldwide revenues for Big Data and business analytics solutions grew 12% to $189.1 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at 13% CAGR to $274.3 billion by 2022. Redwood City-based Sumo Logic is a Unicorn in the market.

Sumo Logic’s Offerings

Sumo Logic was set up in 2010 by Kumar Saurabh and Christian Beedgen, alumni of the cyber security player ArcSight. The founders wanted to set up a service that could empower digital business through real-time analytics delivered as a service. A few years ago, I had met with Sumo Logic’s former CEO Vance Loiselle who talked in more detail about the founding principles for the organization. Sumo Logic was set up to provide organizations with the ability to harvest application infrastructure and mobile data to get insights.

While it is easy to leverage structured data for analysis, the challenge lies in making use of unstructured data that comes from various machines including servers, networks, mobile devices, or other connected devices. Sumo Logic helps use the data that comes from these devices to proactively address issues that may arise. Today, its purpose-built, cloud-native service analyzes more than 200 petabytes of data, more than 20 million searches and delivers tens of millions of insights to become one of the most powerful machine data analytics services in the world.

Sumo Logic operates a cloud-native, multi-tenant platform that helps collect data from more than 150 applications and integrations. It simplifies the aggregation of the data across the stack. Customizable dashboards make analytics easier and more reliable for organizations. Additionally, its machine learning algorithm identifies issues and sends out alerts. Sumo Logic operates on AWS, Google Cloud, and the Azure cloud service. The apps and integrations on its platform help with development, security, operations, and productivity use cases.

Sumo Logic’s Financials

Sumo Logic is privately held and does not disclose its financials. It operates on a freemium model. The basic plan is available for free for individuals and small teams who want to try out its platform for a small project. Bigger organizations can access Sumo Logic’s analytics platform for a fee ranging from $90 to $150 per month depending on the team size.

Market reports suggest that the company has 500 employees, 2,000 customers, and 100,000 users. Its revenue was over $100 million in the last fiscal. It has raised $340 million in funding so far from investors including Franklin Templeton Investments, Battery Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Sutter Hill Ventures, Accel, Sequoia Capital, DFJ Growth, IVP (Institutional Venture Partners), Sapphire Ventures, and Greylock Partners. Its last round of funding was held in May last year when it raised $110 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion. Prior to this round of funding, Sumo Logic had raised $70 million in 2017. It was looking to go public soon after that funding, but those plans appear to have been delayed. Sumo Logic has not provided a revised timeline for listing and is instead committed to investing in its operations for now.