New Relic
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, Analytics |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founder | Lew Cirne |
| Headquarters | San Francisco , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Ashan Willy (CEO), Lew Cirne (Executive Chairman) |
| Products | Cloud software for analytics and application performance management |
| Parent | Francisco Partners and TPG Inc. |
| Website | newrelic |
New Relic, Inc. is a U.S.-based analytics firm located in San Francisco, focusing on cloud software that tracks user engagement with websites and mobile applications, as well as the performance of software and hardware systems.
In November 2023, New Relic was acquired by private equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG Inc. in a transaction valued at around $6.5 billion.
Origins and initial development
Established in 2008 by Lew Cirne, who initially held the CEO role before becoming executive chairman, the company's name is derived as an anagram of its founder’s name.
In 2012, CA Technologies filed a lawsuit against New Relic alleging patent violations related to application performance management (APM), following CA’s acquisition of Wily Technology, a company also founded by Cirne.
By February 2013, New Relic raised $80 million from investors such as Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Benchmark Capital, and Dragoneer, placing its valuation at $750 million. This capital injection enabled the company to expand into native analytics for Android and iOS mobile applications. Later that year, New Relic shifted its analytics platform to a SaaS delivery model under the internal project name Rubicon.
In April 2014, the firm secured an additional $100 million funding round led by BlackRock, Inc. and Passport Capital, with participation from T. Rowe Price and Wellington Management. The company went public on December 12, 2014, generating $115 million through its initial public offering.
From 2020 onward
In January 2020, Bill Staples was appointed Chief Product Officer to oversee product management, engineering, design, and platform strategy. By March, New Relic signed a decade-long lease for office space in Midtown Atlanta to bolster its East Coast presence. In June, the company merged two engineering teams in Portland, resulting in fewer than 20 layoffs. That same month brought internal tensions when former CEO Lew Cirne discouraged conversations about systemic racism within the organization.
July 2020 saw the introduction of New Relic One, a comprehensive platform priced per user rather than per server, designed to streamline the company's product suite. Later that year, employee unrest arose over concerns about corporate culture and Cirne’s contentious political contributions. In December, New Relic expanded its cloud-native Kubernetes monitoring capabilities through the acquisition of Pixie Labs.
April 2021 involved significant restructuring with approximately 160 employees laid off as New Relic transitioned from a subscription-based model to one based on consumption. In May, Bill Staples was elevated to CEO while Cirne assumed the role of executive chairman. The company broadened its developer tools offerings by acquiring CodeStream in October.
At the start of 2022, New Relic launched infrastructure monitoring solutions aimed at DevOps, SRE, and ITOps professionals managing hybrid cloud environments. By May, it released a vulnerability management product targeting security and operations teams.
After reporting a $55 million operational loss for fiscal year 2023, New Relic implemented global workforce reductions exceeding 200 positions in June. In July, private equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG Inc. agreed to purchase the company for $6.5 billion in an all-cash transaction. The deal closed in November, resulting in New Relic’s removal from the New York Stock Exchange. Following this, the company put half of its San Francisco headquarters up for sublease.
In December 2023, Ashan Willy, former CEO of Proofpoint, was named as New Relic’s new chief executive officer.
Products
New Relic offers its solutions through a software as a service (SaaS) framework, enabling real-time surveillance of both web and mobile applications. The platform accommodates custom-developed plugins that gather a wide range of data, thereby strengthening its application performance management functionalities.
Operations
Based in San Francisco, New Relic is led by CEO Ashan Willy as of January 2024. The company has formed key collaborations with prominent cloud service providers and platforms such as IBM Bluemix, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace Hosting, along with mobile backend services including Appcelerator and Parse. These partnerships enhance New Relic's integration within the cloud ecosystem and broaden its market presence.
External links
- Articles with short description
- 2008 establishments in California
- 2014 initial public offerings
- Software companies established in 2008
- Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Companies based in San Francisco
- Website monitoring software
- Cloud applications
- Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
- American companies established in 2008
- Software companies of the United States
- 2023 mergers and acquisitions
- Big data companies
- Software performance management
- 5
- Companies of the United States by year of establishment