Onwards, Instana

At Accel we truly believe that great start-ups can emerge from anywhere, and no company has proven that point more than Instana, whose acquisition by IBM was announced today. We’ve only been shareholders for a bit more than 3 years and in many ways our journey was just getting started, but in the end the team got an offer they couldn’t refuse. We’re thrilled for co-founders Mirko, Fabian, Pavlo, and Pete.

In the list of unusual locations for tech, its original headquarters in Solingen may come near the top: a small city best known as the home to several of Germany’s world-famous kitchen knife manufacturers. In a place more associated with steel than silicon, you don’t find co-working hubs or artisanal coffee shops around every corner.

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But one person has worked for years to put Solingen on the map for tech, and that’s Mirko. When we met him in 2017, he was already well-known in the city, as a tech entrepreneur through his previous consultancy business Codecentric. Walking around town with him, you could guarantee that he would be stopped a dozen times by people wanting to greet him and have a conversation. It’s been a privilege to work with someone who is not only a great entrepreneur, but a genuine leader in his community.

Instana is much more than a Solingen success story. It’s become a global leader in Application Performance Management, modernizing a large software category and democratizing adoption of what used to be a highly specialized IT infrastructure solution. Many of its global customers have hundreds of employees using the product, and in some cases the number of users has topped a thousand. The fast-growing company has more than earned its recognition as a leader inits field from analysts including Gartner and G2.

Investors will always say they can remember the genesis of each deal, but in this case it’s really true – because we agreed it over dinner on Valentine’s Day 2017. It was a memorable beginning to what has been a great and enjoyable partnership.  

Thank you Instana for letting us be part of your unique story. We can’t wait to see where it goes next.