Loggly

We Got Funded Again

Posted 18 May, 2010 by Kord Campbell in Business and Startup

On Monday, Loggly closed a $4.2M B round, with Trinity Ventures leading and True Ventures participating. As you may recall from my previous post, True led our initial seed investment, which was closed 5 months ago to the day.

My relationship with Trinity goes back over a year and a half ago – well before Raffy and I started thinking about doing a cloud based log management offering. Like many other startups, Trinity was started by two entrepreneurs. For years, Trinity’s motto has been focusing on early stage companies in specific technology categories, such as cloud computing and systems management.

Loggly is extremely fortunate to be working with Trinity and their bright team, and we greatly value the market experience they bring to the relationship.

History Lessons

I met Trinity through a fairly short introduction path. My good friend and former colleague, Dakota Sullivan, introduced me to a gentleman named Matt Strand in January of 2009. Matt and I had coffee at Crossroads Cafe in South Beach where I told him I was looking to join or start a cloud computing based company. Matt figured he should hook me up with a VC buddy of his, Dan Scholnick at Trinity.

Here’s the email introducing the two of us:

Matt was right about it being a valuable connection. Over the next year Dan and I would spend time together drinking coffee, chatting on the phone, and emailing each other about ideas in and around the enterprise and cloud computing space.

It was because of my conversations with Dan that Raffy and I were able to come to the idea of a cloud based logging service. Even when it came time to start pitching Loggly to others, Dan and Noel assisted us in honing our pitch, which eventually led to us being funded by True in a seed round.

Start Small, Go Big

When you are starting out, even the smallest conversation or the shortest email could potentially be the most important one you’ve had in years. Having an idea, growing it, and turning it into a business is a complicated process. That process takes time, and doesn’t happen over a matter of days, or even weeks, but instead over months and even years.

Our relationship with Trinity has been a long time in the works. While it may have appeared to happen rather quickly, Loggly’s efforts with Trinity started at the very beginning of its life.

In as much as your idea should evolve over time, your ability to convey the idea and the opportunity it represents should grow as well. I’ve lost count of how many times Dan has told me to ‘crisp up’ my presentation, discussed with me partnership negotiation strategies, or told me how to approach feedback with our current private beta testers, but I’m sure the hell glad he did.

Without investors like Trinity and True, it’s unlikely I’d be here telling you this story. You would be well to seek out these types of investors when you are looking for direction and guidance for your idea.

Now you’ll excuse me while we get back to coding. We have beta testers who have logs in need of indexing!

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