Middleware is a Y Combinator-backed cloud observability platform that revolutionizes how development and operations teams debug issues. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Middleware CEO and founder Laduram Vishnoi to learn more.
Laduram Vishnoi’s Background
Vishnoi aims to disrupt tech stacks for the better with a revolutionary cloud observability platform that includes GPT-based AI advisors. And he is also an angel investor and startup consultant. Before launching Middleware, Vishnoi founded the customer engagement platform Acquire.io, where he grew the company from one to 200 people and attracted $57 in seed and series A funding.
He also founded London-based Total Tech, a software and mobile app development agency. Vishnoi earned his BSc in computer science from Staffordshire University. Originally from Jodhpur, a small town in India, he now resides in San Francisco.
Formation Of Middleware
How did the idea for the company come together? Vishnoi said:
“I first realized this problem in 2018 while building my previous company, Acquire. We could not find any great solution for cloud-native monitoring, so we built our own. so we clearly know what are the problem we are solving.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for Middleware so far? Vishnoi reflected:
“There are quite a few amazing things that happened: 1.) Getting into YC; 2.) Get an offer from 8vc; 3.) Hiring new people; 4.) Start getting inbound requests.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Vishnoi faced in building the company? Vishnoi acknowledged:
“The current macroeconomic climate is helping us a lot in building because most companies are trying to move away from old legacy providers to save some cost in observability. And we are 3 to 4x cheaper the current provider, so we see quite a big spike in inbound from DataDog and New Relic.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Vishnoi explained:
“The core product is AI for Kubernetes observability, where we support metrics, logs, traces, and events. But we recently launched synthetic and real user monitoring, too.”
Evolution Of Middleware’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Vishnoi noted:
“We changed a lot in the last six months. We push a lot in AI to automate alerts and get deep insights of where the issue came from and how to fix it.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Vishnoi cited:
“The seed round was one of the big milestones for this year.”
Funding
The company has raised a total of $6.5 million so far through a seed round.
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Vishnoi assessed:
“Observability is a huge market, and it’s growing 12% year over year at roughly $50 billion market size by 2025. Splunk is close to $4 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Datadog is at about $2 billion ARR. And New Relic is close to $1 billion.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Vishnoi affirmed:
– AI-powered observability where it can get detailed insight of infra and applications.
– Installation makes it so simple to use eBPF
– 3x to 4x cheaper in pricing
– Up to 45x data compression to reduce the cost of data storage
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Vishnoi concluded:
“Keep enhancing observability using AI. And launching a security product sometime next year.”
