Observe
Observe, founded in 2017, provides an AI-powered observability platform unifying logs, metrics, traces, and LLM monitoring, built on a proprietary context graph and Snowflake-backed data lake for enterprise engineering and SRE teams. Acquired by Snowflake in January 2026 for approximately $1 billion.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2017
- HeadquartersSan Mateo, United States
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Observe does
Observe, Inc., founded in 2017 by former leaders of Snowflake, Splunk, Wavefront, and Roblox, provides an AI-powered observability platform that unifies log management, application performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, and LLM observability in a single system. The platform is built on two proprietary architectural components: the O11y Context Graph, which structures logs, metrics, and traces as semantically related entities using incremental views and token indexes, and the O11y Data Lake, which stores telemetry in Apache Iceberg tables with 10x compression on low-cost cloud storage (~$0.0023/GB/month). Native construction on Snowflake's database layer underpins the cost and performance claims, including 13-month default data retention and 400+ pre-built integrations across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes. AI capabilities center on the AI SRE product and the O11y Investigator agentic system, which together enable natural-language incident investigation, autonomous root-cause analysis, and CI/CD deployment validation.
Observe firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Observe
- Legal name
- Observe, Inc.
- Website
- https://observeinc.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2017
- Operating status
- Acquired
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- Observe, founded in 2017, provides an AI-powered observability platform unifying logs, metrics, traces, and LLM monitoring, built on a proprietary context graph and Snowflake-backed data lake for enterprise engineering and SRE teams. Acquired by Snowflake in January 2026 for approximately $1 billion.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Observe industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Cloud Observability / Monitoring Software
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Distributed Tracing (HDABAJAD)
Keywords
Where Observe is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Mateo
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices4 records
Markets served
Observe business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Observability Platform Subscription: SaaS subscription for AI-powered observability platform. Pricing based on data ingestion, storage, and compute usage. Customers pay for data volumes ingested, acceleration costs, and query-related expenses.
- Usage-based Pricing: Usage-based pricing model aligned with data lake economics. Storage costs approximately $0.0023/GB per month (based on Amazon S3 pricing). Acceleration costs typically ~50% of total bill, queries ~20%.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Usage-based SaaS model with free trial |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels5 records
Observe product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Observe provides an AI-powered observability cloud platform that unifies logs, metrics, and traces into a single system built on an O11y Context Graph and O11y Data Lake architecture. The platform enables engineering and SRE teams to ingest, query, and correlate telemetry data for incident investigation and root-cause analysis. It is sold as a SaaS subscription with usage-based pricing aimed at enterprise engineering organizations.
Product overview
Observe is an AI-powered observability platform offering a unified solution that combines log management, application performance monitoring (APM), infrastructure monitoring, and LLM observability. The platform is built on a proprietary architecture comprising the O11y Context Graph for semantic data relationships and the O11y Data Lake for cost-effective storage. Core capabilities include AI SRE (AI Site Reliability Engineer) for automated troubleshooting, Trace Explorer for distributed trace analysis, and comprehensive monitoring across cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), Kubernetes, and 400+ integrations. Following Snowflake's acquisition in January 2026, Observe operates as a product within Snowflake's AI Data Cloud, offering native integration with Snowflake while maintaining its observability-focused feature set including the Observe Agent, MCP Server for AI agent connectivity, and specialized LLM Observability for AI workload monitoring.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- AI SRE: AI-powered Site Reliability Engineering tool that automates telemetry data analysis, root cause identification, and remediation suggestions for faster incident resolution.
- Hubble
- O11y Context Graph
- O11y Data Lake
- Observe by Snowflake
Products and services
- Observe Platform
Quantifiable outcome
- 10x faster issue resolution (MTTR)
- +6 more outcomes
Companies that use Observe
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Observe technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration33 records
AI capability8 records
Feature14 records
Observe partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Five partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- OpenTelemetrycoreOpenTelemetry is the open-source standard for telemetry data collection that Observe supports natively. Observe's platform uses OpenTelemetry for vendor-neutral data collection, avoiding vendor lock-in for customers. This partnership enables broad compatibility with observability instrumentation across languages and frameworks.
- Apache IcebergcoreApache Iceberg is the open table format used by Observe's data lake for storing telemetry data. Iceberg enables open data formats that avoid vendor lock-in and enable data reuse across use cases (observability, security, compliance) from the same underlying dataset.
- OpenAIcoreObserve's AI capabilities leverage large language models from providers like OpenAI for AI SRE functionality. The O11y Investigator uses AI agent workflows similar to OpenAI's approach to tool-augmented AI, enabling AI to call functions and interact with observability data.
- AnthropiccoreObserve's AI SRE productivity analysis methodology was based on Anthropic's research approach for estimating AI productivity gains. Observe used Claude models for time estimation in their productivity study, and Anthropic's research methodology informed their AI assessment framework.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreObserve's data lake is built on Amazon S3, enabling 10x compression and low-cost storage at approximately $0.0023/GB/month. AWS integrations include AWS-at-scale data ingestion, autodiscovery, and comprehensive monitoring capabilities.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Observe competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Elastic: Elastic (ELK Stack) provides search-powered log analytics and observability, and is explicitly named as a displacement target on Observe's website, making it a directly comparable incumbent.
- Honeycomb.io: Honeycomb is an observability platform focused on high-cardinality event data and trace analysis for engineering teams, comparable in serving developer-led, debug-driven use cases overlapping with Observe's context-graph approach.
- Datadog: Datadog is the leading cloud-native observability platform offering unified infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, and security on a SaaS model serving the same enterprise engineering buyers as Observe.
- Splunk: Splunk is the legacy index-based log analytics and observability incumbent that Observe explicitly targets for displacement with cost-efficient data-lake architecture and AI-native correlation.
- Dynatrace: Dynatrace offers an enterprise observability and AIOps platform with automated root-cause analysis, competing directly with Observe's AI SRE positioning and large-enterprise sales motion.
- New Relic: New Relic provides a unified APM, infrastructure, log, and browser monitoring platform on a consumption-based model, directly comparable to Observe's logs/metrics/traces bundle and SaaS delivery.
- Grafana Labs: Grafana Labs is the open-source observability stack (Grafana, Loki, Mimir, Tempo) competing on open-standards telemetry and cost — the same wedge Observe pursues via OpenTelemetry and Apache Iceberg.
- Sumo Logic: Sumo Logic is a SaaS log analytics and observability platform serving enterprise DevOps and security teams on a usage-based model, competing with Observe on similar telemetry pipelines and customer segments.
Emerging players
- Chronosphere: Chronosphere is a cloud-native observability platform targeting cost-controlled metrics with M3-based architecture, positioned similarly to Observe for enterprises seeking alternatives to legacy indexing tiers.
- Sentry: Sentry is an application error monitoring and performance platform that overlaps with Observe's APM/trace debugging capabilities for engineering teams, though it focuses more narrowly on error tracking than full-stack observability.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Observe social profiles
Digital presenceObserve financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Observe leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
Observe funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds7 records
Investors7 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Observe M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Observe
What does Observe do?
Observe provides an AI-powered observability cloud platform that unifies logs, metrics, and traces into a single system built on an O11y Context Graph and O11y Data Lake architecture. The platform enables engineering and SRE teams to ingest, query, and correlate telemetry data for incident investigation and root-cause analysis. It is sold as a SaaS subscription with usage-based pricing aimed at enterprise engineering organizations.
Is Observe a public or private company?
Observe is a private company. It is currently acquired.
When was Observe founded?
Observe was founded in 2017. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is Observe based?
Observe is headquartered in San Mateo, United States, in the North America region.
How does Observe make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Observability Platform Subscription is the primary driver. The others are usage-based Pricing.
Who are Observe's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Elastic, Honeycomb.io, Datadog, Splunk, Dynatrace, New Relic, Grafana Labs and Sumo Logic. Emerging players are Chronosphere and Sentry.
Does Observe have an API?
Yes. Observe provides a public REST API accessible at https://docs.observeinc.com/ for managing service accounts, creating reference tables, and integrating with external systems. The API supports programmatic access to Observe's observability data and configuration capabilities. Developer documentation is at docs.observeinc.com.
What industry is Observe in?
Observe's product category is Cloud Observability / Monitoring Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDABAJAD, Distributed Tracing. Its NAICS code is 51821 and its SIC code is 7370.