Cloud computing might be a threat to some of the biggest IT vendors around, but it's turning other companies into the next Goliaths.
Take ScienceLogic, for example, a company founded 12 years ago by CEO David Link.
ScienceLogic's revenue under contract — aka "bookings" — tripled from about $30 million in 2014 to $100 million in 2015, Link told Business Insider.
And he expects big growth again in 2016, although he wouldn't share the target number.
This is all because of enterprises running full-speed ahead toward cloud-computing services, particularly Amazon Web Services — the giant of the industry.
ScienceLogic offers what's known as systems and network monitoring tools. It competes with products from companies like Zenoss, Solarwinds, IBM, HP, and CA.
The 'hybrid' market
About three years ago, Link saw the cloud-computing trend and revamped his product to work especially well with Amazon's cloud. Today, it also works with Microsoft Azure and clouds built using VMware's software, too.
His goal was to tackle what's known today as "hybrid" computing. That's when companies put part of their IT into the cloud while keeping part in their own data centers.
Many businesses plan to operate in a hybrid forever. Others find that once they try cloud computing, they like it and want to eventually unplug all of their data centers. But they will still be hybrid for a few years, the time it takes them to move.
As you might imagine, it can be complicated to manage a hybrid setup, with apps, data, and systems spread out all over. And this is especially true if a company uses more than one cloud, which many do.
ScienceLogic helps them watch, and even find, all of their IT assets. Its claim to fame is that it's incredibly detailed, Link tells us.
A dot-com survivor
ScienceLogic is also a dream come true for Link.
Before he founded ScienceLogic, Link had been working for a web-hosting company that didn't survive the dot-com bubble. It was his job to buy all of the data-center equipment and systems-monitoring tools. He and his two ScienceLogic cofounders — who still run the company with him — spent their first year programming the initial product in his basement.
"I was a buyer of these products, and I didn't like the way the marketplace was treating me," he told Business Insider. "We didn't build this company to build it and flip it. We wanted to solve a problem near and dear to our hearts."
The company was bootstrapped for its first seven years before landing its first $15 million in venture funding from NEA in 2010. It then landed Intel and Goldman Sachs as investors and, all told, raised $84 million, with a $45 million round from Goldman Sachs about a year ago, before the funding bubble burst.
"We'll be cash-flow positive second half of this year," he says. "I'm so happy to be sitting here now, feeling smarter than I should because we took more funding than we needed."
An initial public offering is the eventual goal, he concedes, but that will have to wait until the public market regains its tech-IPO appetite again.
In the meantime, thanks in large part to Amazon, business is good.
In addition to tripling bookings last year, ScienceLogic will grow its employee base from 270 to about 350 people in 2016, with offices in Europe, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It has 25,000 customers worldwide.
