AppNeta Adds $16M as IT Performance Management Heats Up

Some new venture money for a Boston business software company that’s been around the block—but might just be hitting its stride.

Boston-based AppNeta, an IT performance management firm, has pulled in $16 million in new financing led by previous investors Bain Capital Ventures, Egan-Managed Capital, JMI Equity, and Business Development Bank of Canada. The company had previously raised a little more than $30 million since 2007.

AppNeta is known for its network performance management software, and, more recently, its application performance management software—which helps businesses monitor and fix bottlenecks and other problems with their Web apps.

It’s part of a broader trend of companies offering Web-based software for business performance management—which is like traditional IT performance management, but more focused on business insights (and business users). See, for example, CloudHealth Technologies, which specializes in cloud infrastructure tools and analytics for software companies. And in the realm of application performance management, you have everyone from Hewlett-Packard and CA Technologies to dynaTrace/Compuware and Yottaa scrapping for a piece of the pie.

In 2012, AppNeta acquired Tracelytics, a small Boston-area startup (out of Brown University) doing Web application performance management. That technology lives on as “TraceView,” sold by AppNeta.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.