About two and a half years ago, a group of observability veterans came together to start Dash0 - an OpenTelemetry-native observability platform.
The obvious question came quickly: Why build another observability startup in such a crowded space?
Because observability is still not a solved problem.
Platforms were (and still are) siloed - logs, metrics, and traces often live in different data stores, queried with different languages. Agents were proprietary. More and more telemetry data was being collected, but it didn’t translate into more insight. Meanwhile, observability bills were exploding, hidden behind opaque pricing models, multi-year contracts, and vendor-friendly “transparency.”
We felt there had to be a better way.
Our approach
From day one, we committed to a different model:
- Open and portable. Built on standards like OpenTelemetry and Perses, so customers fully own their data, dashboards, and alerts. No lock-in.
- Easy to use. Self-service onboarding, easy integrations, and a Kubernetes operator for one-click installation and instrumentation.
- Smarter data. The first-ever Telemetry Spam Filter to cut noise (and costs), with AI-driven pipelines coming next.
- Root-cause clarity. One-click Triage that brings logs, metrics, and real-user monitoring into context. And soon, Agent0, our agentic AI wingman for always-on troubleshooting.
- Fair pricing. A simple, transparent, pay-as-you-go model. No contracts, no tricks - if we don’t deliver value, you can walk away.
From idea to traction
Accel, DIG Ventures, and world-class angels gave us $9.5M in seed funding to build our vision. Just 18 months after founding, we launched Dash0 in November 2024.
The early months were all about obsessing over the onboarding journey - ensuring self-service really worked. It paid off:
- Within 3 months, we had 30 paying customers.
- After 6 months, we passed 100 customers.
- Today, just over 10 months after launch, we have 300+ paying customers.
When we started, I set a simple milestone: hit $1M ARR in year one - or shut the company down. Not only did we hit it, we surpassed it by a wide margin, and we’re growing faster than I ever imagined.
Series A and what’s next
Today, I’m thrilled to announce our $35M Series A, co-led by Cherry and Accel with Dig Ventures participating. This funding allows us to double down on what matters most:
- Investing further in our world-class engineering and product team to continue building the best OpenTelemetry and AI native platform.
- Scaling our go-to-market engine to support customers running complex, business-critical applications across the globe.
The timing couldn’t be better. OpenTelemetry adoption is accelerating rapidly, and Dash0 is the only platform supporting it end-to-end - from pipelines, to storage in native OTLP format, to advanced AI-driven analysis.
We’ve already added Real User Monitoring and Synthetic Monitoring, with Continuous Profiling and Error Monitoring on the short-term roadmap. At the same time, we’re moving further into AI-native observability with Agent0, AI-powered pipelines, and service- and business-level analytics.
This is the best time ever to build the next generation of observability. With fresh funding in hand, we’re committed to innovating faster, delivering more value, and supporting many more customers in the months and years ahead.
I couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come.
Mirko
