Cribl sees Cribl Search as completely differentiated in the market because it searches data in place, without the need to move it, including data in data lakes.

Today, San Francisco-based open observability vendor Cribl is making a pair of significant announcements. They are significantly expanding their product portfolio with the introduction of Cribl Search, a tool which Cribl believes redefines the search market because it is the first open and vendor-agnostic analytics tool to perform “search-in-place” queries. They have also announced the raising of $150 million in new Series D funding, which comes less than a year after their Series C round last summer, and brings Cribl’s total funding to $400 million.

“We have raised 150 in new Series D funding additionally, and now we are announcing a third product, said Clint Sharp, CEO and Co-Founder of Cribl. “Each product can be mixed and matched, and either bought individually or as part of a suite.”

Analytics search tools focused on increasing observability are not exactly rare, but Sharp emphasized that what Cribl Search is offering is distinct in the marketplace.

“It is unique in that it is designed to search data in place, whether it is at the edge, or in Snowflake,” he said. It really flips the observability market on its head, from a situation now where the problem is that data is everywhere in many different tools. This also really moves us from being mainly an observability pipeline to being a broader suite.”

Sharp also stressed that Cribl Search is fundamentally different from other search tools in another key respect.

“We are the first federated search product where we are NOT looking to be the data store,” he said it. “The customer owns it. We deal with raw data at rest and in their existing tools, which allows them to address massively greater quantities of data like data lakes.”

Sharp said that Cribl Search refines the whole experience of searching these large entities.

“Before, you would have had to move data, make a copy and put it into a centralized data store,” he stated. “Because we are federated, we can search data lakes without ever moving them. Every other vendor is ‘move your data to me and I will give you value.’ We are ‘leave your data where it is and we will give you value on top of that data’.

“We coined the term observability lakes to separate them from data lakes,” Sharp added. “Data lakes are very popular for storing data, but the ability to use tools to query in data lakes are not very useful. Those that do exist, like Databricks, are more for developers.”

Sharp believes that Cribl Search will ultimately lead to a more aggressive sales strategy, but that this will take some time.

“Our whole strategy is based on land and expand, and I think this is more broadly applicable to our wider questions than what we have offered so far,” he said. “Still, we are not likely to change our sales motion this year and probably not in the next.”

The new D funding round is led by Tiger Global Management, and joined by existing investors CRV, IVP, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia, and Greylock Partners. Coming so soon after the C round, Cribl sees the new round as validating the growing role observability data plays in driving business outcomes.

Sharp explained how the new funding would be used.

“It’s an interesting time to raise money,” he said. “We will invest in channel distribution, and in our Incubation Lab. We believe in building product from first principles that the industry has not yet addressed.”

While a continuing part of the funding will go into new products, Sharp stressed that there will be lot of those coming up.

“There are many more products we envision – on top of the platform, and service,” he stated. “We have tripled the number of customers, and grown our team by over 300%. Our customers need new approaches to deal with increased data growth, which is why we are focused on bringing new products to market.”