papertrailappSeattle-based Papertrail, a 5-person cloud-based log management startup, has been acquired by Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds for $41 million in cash.

Papertrail provides hosted log aggregation and log management for servers, apps, and cloud services. The service allows developers to quickly collect, monitor, search and manage log data regardless of location, providing a simplified view into data generated by core infrastructure and applications. The service will be added to SolarWinds’ Pingdom and Librato offerings.

“Papertrail is a thriving, profitable business trusted by tens of thousands of customers,” said co-founder Troy Davis in a blog post. “That’s been fulfilling enough that we’re ready to “double down” and deliver amazing log management and infrastructure visibility at an even larger scale.”

Founded in 2011, Papertrail never raised outside financing.

“Putting customers first made all the difference,” Davis tells GeekWire. “By not trying to build a large business — and simply trying to deliver an amazing experience to every customer and sweat the details — we built a large business. No shortcuts, just hard work.”

SolarWinds is publicly-traded company with a market value of nearly $4 billion. The company today announced financial results for the first quarter, reporting revenues of $116.8 million, an increase of 22 percent over the same period last year.

Troy Davis
Troy Davis

“Regardless of the type, importance or location (AWS, Azure, Google or a datacenter), we will offer a heterogeneous application and website management solution to help manage and ensure performance,” said Kevin Thompson, President and CEO of SolarWinds in a statement. “The acquisition of Papertrail adds another key element of that overall performance monitoring experience and we look forward to having the Papertrail team and technology as a part of our organization.”

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.