UCD spin-out firm Logentries acquired by Rapid7 for $68m

Rapid7 says it will continue to invest in Logentries’ presence in Ireland

Logentries, a cloud-based log management and analytics service, has been acquired by the US firm Rapid7 for $68 million (€59.5m).

The price paid consists of approximately $36 million in cash and $32 million in Rapid7 equity.

Logentries was co-founded in 2010 by Dr Trevor Parsons and Dr Viliam Holub as a spin-out from UCD's Performance Engineering Laboratory in the UCD School of Computer Science.

The company provides a cloud-based solution for collecting, searching, visualising, and analysing machine data and logs. The architecture enables users to store and search data in real time.

READ MORE

Logentries is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with a research and development team based in Dublin. The company, which has more than 3,000 customers in over 65 countries has 70 employees. Rapid7 said it would continue to build this team and invest in its presence in Ireland.

"Rapid7's leading position in the security data and analytics market gives us the opportunity to reach an evolving and expanding market that is looking for lower cost access to machine data, along with advanced security data collection and analytics," said Andrew Burton, chief executive of Logentries.

Boston-based Rapid7, a provider of security data and analytics solutions said it expects the acquisition of Logentries to be neutral to operating cash flow in the second half of 2016 and to be accretive to operating cash flow, operating income and earnings per share in 2017 and beyond.

It forecast that the acquisition would contribute approximately $4 million to $5 million in revenue next year.

"We're thrilled to add Logentries' technology and team to Rapid7. The disruptive combination of Rapid7's industry-leading data collection and security analytics and Logentries' compelling machine data search technology, enables customers to better understand and quickly respond to risk in their IT environment," said Corey Thomas, president and chief executive of Rapid7.

“This is a natural progression of our security data and analytics platform, complementing our value proposition and accelerating our time to market,” he added.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist