ServiceNow has acquired Lightstep to unify IT Service Management (ITSM) and application monitoring. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
This is the 268th technology M&A transaction reported by ChannelE2E so far in 2021. View all technology M&A transactions in 2021 and 2020 listed here.
A big question: Will ServiceNow use Lightstep to compete with application performance monitoring (APM) platforms such as Cisco AppDynamics, Datadog, Dynatrace, ManageEngine, New Relic, and SolarWinds.
Frankly speaking, it is too early to say. But here is a clue: When Lightstep raised $41 million in Series C financing, the company described itself as an APM software provider in 2018.
ServiceNow acquires Lightstep: Explaining the potential synergy between ITSM and APM
Fast forward to today. The company said that Lightstep’s software provides application monitoring and observability capabilities to DevOps teams. The seller added that Lightstep’s main customers include GitHub, Spotify and Twilio.
Lightstep was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Chief Executive Officer Ben Siegman, Chief Operating Officer Ben Cronin, Chief Architect Daniel SpowellThe seller said that the Lightstep team members include veterans from Google, who co-founded the OpenTracing and OpenTelemetry open source projects.
The buyer stated that the ServiceNow-Lightstep transaction will enable customers to “use Lightstep features and ServiceNow’s IT workflow solutions to more easily monitor and respond to key signals and software health indicators.”
ServiceNow Acquires Lightstep: Executive Perspective
Ben Sigman, CEO of Lightstep
Pablo Stern, CEO of ServiceNow
In a prepared statement about this transaction, Pablo SternThe Senior Vice President of IT Workflow Products at ServiceNow said:
“In order to thrive in the 21st century, companies are betting on digital transformation, but transformation is often challenging. With Lightstep, ServiceNow will change the way that software solutions are delivered to customers. This will ultimately make it easier for customers to innovate quickly. Now, they will Can build and run their software faster than ever before, and embrace the new era of work with confidence.”
Add to Ben Siegman, CEO and co-founder of Lightstep:
“Today, observability is mainly beneficial to DevOps teams that build and operate mission-critical applications. We have always believed that the value of observability should extend to the entire enterprise, providing greater clarity to every team involved in these modern digital businesses Degree and confidence. By joining ServiceNow, we will jointly realize this vision for our customers and help change the world of work in the process-we are extremely excited about this.”
ServiceNow expects to complete the acquisition in the second quarter of 2021.
ServiceNow: From ITSM to APM and RPM
ServiceNow is actively expanding beyond ITSM through organic R&D and acquisitions. In addition to the Lightstep APM transaction, ServiceNow also acquired Intellibot in March 2021 for robotic process automation (RPA). This move laid the foundation for potential competition such as Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate.
At the same time, MSP has been using ServiceNow to provide co-managed services for mid-market and enterprise customers. With the surge in ServiceNow deployments, M&A activities among ServiceNow partners have been active.
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