NetBox Labs Raises $20M to Automate Network Management with Open Source Solution – AlleyWatch

Network management is an important aspect of IT operations and service delivery. As more devices are connected to networks, network complexity increases, requiring close monitoring of traffic and usage patterns to quickly and efficiently diagnose problems before they become destabilizing. NetBox is the leading open source solution for documenting modern networks with a focus on both IP Address Management (IPAM) and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM). netbox lab built NetBox Cloud, a SaaS cloud-hosted service that provides an enterprise-grade commercial version of NetBox. The platform greatly integrates automation and removes the administrative burden of hosting and managing NetBox instances. Offering a wide range of customization options, including custom fields, plugins, APIS, and webhooks, NetBox users rely on a solution that acts as their network’s single source of truth. Launched by the network management expert as a spin-out from NS1 (acquired by IBM), Netbox Cloud already counts organizations like NFTA, Dartmouth and Chewy as satisfied customers.

alley watch Catch up with Co-Founder and CEO of NetBox Labs Chris Beavers To learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent funding rounds and more…

Who are your investors and how much did you raise?

NetBox Labs has raised $20 million in Series A funding. flybridge capital Leading investment with participation from GGV Capital, Grafana Labs CEO Raj Dutt, Mango Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, IBM, Founder Collectiveand Entre Capital.

What products or services does NetBox Labs offer?
NetBox Labs offers NetBox Cloud, an enterprise-grade SaaS version of the open source NetBox. NetBox Cloud is the world’s most popular Network Source of Truth, an essential tool for managing and automating modern networks, with thousands of enterprise installations. We are the commercial custodians of NetBox and also responsible for Orb, the next generation open source network observability platform.

What inspired you to start NetBox Labs?
When I was CEO of NS1, I discovered the NetBox community after hearing a lot of rave reviews from NS1 customers about NetBox’s powerful UI, extensible network modeling, and comprehensive API. We also learned that many teams are spending time and effort deploying and maintaining open source NetBoxes. This is because NetBox is a very important component for operations.Shortly after, NetBox creator and lead maintainer Jeremy Stretch As a prominent engineer, he joined the NS1 team and helped launch NetBox Cloud, a cloud-hosted and managed SaaS version of NetBox. With NS1’s backing, Jeremy continued to support and invest in the open source community, and NetBox Cloud accelerated adoption of his platform. It has become clear that NetBox can and should stand out as an independent company ready to transform the new field of network automation.
NetBox Labs was founded with the goal of creating a virtuous cycle of reinvestment in the open source community to become a leader in network management and network automation. I and other members of the NetBox Labs leadership team, including Jeremy and many of his NS1 executives, believe that his professional time is best spent building networks, not managing tools. I think. Based on open principles, we build an easy-to-use SaaS platform that improves the lives of thousands of network professionals.

How is NetBox Labs different?

Our leadership team consists of industry visionaries with a proven track record of transforming critical infrastructure markets. (Management came from his NS1, another New York-based infrastructure scale-up recently acquired by IBM). The company is also backed by venture capitalists who have invested in his leaders in highly successful commercial open source businesses such as HashiCorp, MongoDB and Grafana Labs.
NetBox Labs is also supported by a global and passionate open source community that includes tens of thousands of engineers. NetBox is already in use by thousands of companies. It is a standard network authoritative source and an important starting point on your journey to network automation.
Historically most companies have managed their networks using tools like Excel and solutions from DDI and other network vendors built for traditional networks, but these legacy solutions are distributed and cannot scale to accommodate the dynamic, distributed and complex nature of modern networks spanning remote footprints. , hybrid cloud, and the edge driven by the proliferation of mobility and connected devices. Enterprises need a dedicated system of record or source of truth for their networks, with modern APIs and integration with a broad ecosystem of modern network management and automation tools offered by NetBox and NetBox Cloud. increase.

What is NetBox Labs’ target market and size?

It targets the rapidly growing network automation industry, worth up to $30 billion by 2028, according to Emergen Research.

what is your business model?

Open source NetBox is free and can be downloaded from GitHub. Available in deployment, standard, and enterprise plans, NetBox Cloud is a managed NetBox solution with enterprise-grade features, sold directly to businesses of all sizes and in all industries who need help building and managing complex networks. will be

How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We plan for smart, sustainable growth and are now investing aggressively in our products and open source community to support the rapid growth we are already seeing. We see great potential in the network automation market, and many of the industry’s most influential VCs are backing us.

What was the fundraising process like?
This was a unique funding process as NetBox Labs was spun out of NS1 while IBM acquired NS1. We created a lot of momentum within NS1. Also, the momentum of his open source NetBox community has accelerated significantly over the last few years. Many of NetBox Labs’ investors also invested in his NS1, so the whole thing happened “as a matter of course” for investors. With such momentum, the established team we have assembled and the team’s track record of success with his NS1, this has been a very easy investment for VCs.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in raising capital?
NetBox Labs was an established business spun out of NS1, so the most interesting challenge in the process was executing the spin-out and raising capital at the same time. That meant starting a new company, setting up operational systems and processes, and generally doing everything. We were maintaining momentum and fundraising while doing what we normally do to launch an entirely new company. A truly unique situation!

What factors in your business are driving investors to write you checks?
Our investors recognize that the network automation market is a huge opportunity. Because all networking teams in the world are under pressure because they manage increasingly dynamic and distributed networks, and their networks play a vital role in every aspect of their work. Life, and the massive explosion of mobility and connected devices. Network construction and management is still manual, which introduces errors and delays. NetBox technology solves this problem.
NetBox has a world-class open source community with high engagement (including over 12,000 stars on GitHub), and NetBox Cloud is enjoying early commercial traction.
NetBox Labs has a simple, unique and ambitious long-term strategy with a management team that has a proven track record of success with NS1. At NS1, our agility and dedication were integral to the company’s success and eventual acquisition by IBM.

What milestones do you plan to achieve in the next six months?

Our goal is to establish NetBox and NetBox Cloud as key components of a modern composable network automation stack, leveraging the $20B+ market opportunity with Orb, our open source observability solution. .
As a first step, we want to establish NetBox’s current position as an established leader in Network Source of Truth (NSoT) technology, helping all network teams begin their network automation journey. This includes leveraging the large and passionate open source community around NetBox to spread the value of NetBox. As far as the NetBox cloud is concerned, it will focus on providing more enterprise-grade features on top of its already large open source feature set, making it easy and simple for network teams to get NetBox up and running. .

What advice can you give to New York companies that haven’t injected fresh capital into their banks?
We are in a challenging market in 2023. Operate with discipline and focus. Do less work and focus on identifying and solving real customer problems. It sounds basic, but it’s a way to build a foundation of lasting value and scale, and that’s what it takes to attract capital in any market.

Where do you see the company going now in the near future?
NetBox Labs invests heavily in their products to deliver a vision of an open and configurable network automation stack. Of course, this includes further investments in his NetBox and NetBox Cloud, but our vision extends to the broader requirements of modern networking, such as observability and automation tools. As such, NetBox Labs is also the new home of Orb, a next-generation open source network observability platform originally built on NS1. We also continue to invest in the entire network automation ecosystem.

Where is your favorite coffee shop or location in the city to hold a meeting?
For many years we have worked in Lower Manhattan. At Tajin on Greenwich Street, he stumbled upon three different startups (now he includes NetBox Labs).

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