New Relic
New Relic provides a cloud-based observability platform for monitoring, analyzing, and improving software performance.
Last updated August 21, 2026
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Overview
New Relic is an American software company focused on observability, application performance monitoring, and web and mobile analytics. Founded in 2008 by Lew Cirne, the company developed a cloud-delivered software model that enables engineering, development, operations, and security teams to collect telemetry from applications, infrastructure, user experiences, and other technology environments. The company name is an anagram of its founder's name. New Relic initially became known for application performance monitoring, particularly for web applications. Its software allowed operators to observe application response times, transaction behavior, errors, and other performance indicators in real time. Over time, the platform expanded beyond application monitoring into infrastructure monitoring, log management, browser and mobile monitoring, synthetic testing, vulnerability management, Kubernetes and cloud-native observability, and developer-oriented tools. New Relic's software-as-a-service model is designed to ingest data from customer applications and systems, correlate that information, and present it through dashboards, alerts, traces, logs, and analytical tools. It also supports integrations and custom plugins for collecting data from a wide range of environments. The company raised substantial private funding during its expansion. In 2013 it announced an $80 million financing round, followed by a $100 million round in 2014. New Relic completed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2014 under the ticker NEWR. During the following years it positioned itself as a broad software analytics and observability provider and developed partnerships with major cloud, hosting, application-platform, and mobile-backend providers. A significant product transition occurred in 2020, when New Relic introduced New Relic One as a unified observability platform. The company also expanded through acquisitions, including Pixie Labs in 2020 for Kubernetes and cloud-native monitoring and CodeStream in 2021 for developer collaboration. Bill Staples became chief executive officer in 2021, while Cirne moved to the role of executive chairman. New Relic later introduced infrastructure monitoring and security-oriented vulnerability management capabilities. New Relic faced operational and cultural challenges during the early 2020s. In 2020, an internal dispute arose after Cirne circulated a memo discouraging workplace discussion of Black Lives Matter, and controversy followed reports concerning charitable donations associated with him. In 2023, the company reported a $55 million operational loss for the preceding fiscal year and reduced its workforce. That year, Francisco Partners and TPG agreed to acquire New Relic in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6.5 billion. The transaction closed in November 2023, after which New Relic was delisted and became privately held. Ashan Willy, formerly chief executive of Proofpoint, was announced as New Relic's chief executive in December 2023. The company has continued to develop observability features for modern cloud and software-development workflows, including a 2025 integration with GitHub Copilot's agentic coding capabilities intended to identify performance problems in generated code. New Relic remains an active enterprise software brand serving organizations that need visibility across applications, infrastructure, logs, end-user experiences, cloud-native workloads, and security operations.
History
Lew Cirne founded New Relic in 2008 and served as its chief executive during the company's formative period. The name New Relic is constructed from the letters of Cirne's name. The company built its initial reputation around cloud-based application performance monitoring, giving software teams real-time visibility into application behavior, response times, errors, and transactions. Its SaaS delivery model allowed customers to monitor web and mobile software without deploying a traditional on-premises monitoring suite. New Relic's early expansion was supported by venture and institutional financing. In February 2013, the company announced an $80 million round involving investors including Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Benchmark Capital, Allen & Company, Trinity Ventures, Passport Capital, Dragoneer, and Tenaya Capital. The financing supported the extension of the platform to native Android and iOS applications. In October of the same year, New Relic announced a move toward a SaaS version of its software analytics product under the code name Rubicon. In April 2014, it raised a further $100 million in a round led by BlackRock and Passport Capital, with participation from T. Rowe Price and Wellington Management. The company became publicly traded on December 12, 2014, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NEWR. Its scope broadened from application performance monitoring into a wider collection of software analytics and observability functions. New Relic developed integrations with cloud and application-platform companies including IBM Bluemix, Amazon Web Services, CloudBees, Engine Yard, Heroku, Joyent, Rackspace, and Microsoft Azure. It also worked with mobile application backend providers such as Appcelerator, Parse, and StackMob. The platform supported custom plugins and data collection from varied software and hardware environments. New Relic underwent organizational and strategic changes in 2020 and 2021. Bill Staples joined as chief product officer in January 2020. In July 2020, the company introduced New Relic One, a platform intended to bring its observability capabilities together in a more unified experience. In December 2020, New Relic acquired Pixie Labs, whose technology focused on monitoring Kubernetes and other cloud-native workloads. In June 2021, it acquired CodeStream, a developer collaboration tool, extending the company's reach into development workflows. In May 2021, Staples became chief executive officer and Cirne transitioned to executive chairman. The company also experienced internal controversy in 2020. During debates over how New Relic should address systemic racism, Cirne circulated a memo stating that Black Lives Matter discussions were off the table. The episode generated internal disagreement. Later that year, reports about donations by Cirne to organizations characterized as anti-gay and anti-Jewish caused some employees to feel uncomfortable and offended. These episodes became part of the company's public history and were reported as workplace and governance controversies. New Relic continued broadening its technical portfolio in 2022. It released infrastructure monitoring designed for DevOps, site reliability engineering, and IT operations teams across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. It also launched a vulnerability management tool aimed at security, DevOps, SecOps, and SRE users. The product direction reflected the industry's movement from isolated application monitoring toward unified observability across infrastructure, logs, traces, end-user experience, cloud-native systems, and security data. In June 2023, New Relic announced workforce reductions after reporting a $55 million operational loss in the preceding fiscal year. In July, Francisco Partners and TPG agreed to acquire the company in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6.5 billion. The transaction closed in November 2023, ending New Relic's period as a public company and resulting in its delisting from the NYSE. In December 2023, the company announced Ashan Willy, previously chief executive of Proofpoint, as its new chief executive. New Relic has remained active as a privately held observability company. In 2025, it announced an integration with GitHub Copilot's agentic coding capability to help identify performance issues in generated code. It also appointed Brian Emerson as chief product officer. The company's present identity is centered on providing telemetry collection, analysis, alerting, and troubleshooting across the software-development and IT lifecycle.
- 2025
AI coding observability integration
[1]New Relic announced an integration with GitHub Copilot's agentic coding capability to identify performance issues in generated code.
- 2023
New Relic becomes privately held
[1]Francisco Partners and TPG completed their approximately $6.5 billion acquisition, after which New Relic was delisted.
- 2023
Ashan Willy becomes CEO
[1]New Relic announced Ashan Willy as chief executive.
- 2022
Infrastructure and vulnerability capabilities expand
[1]New Relic released expanded infrastructure monitoring and a vulnerability management tool.
- 2021
Leadership transition and CodeStream acquisition
[1]Bill Staples became CEO, Lew Cirne became executive chairman, and New Relic acquired CodeStream.
- 2020
New Relic One launches
[1]The company introduced New Relic One as a unified observability platform.
- 2020
Pixie Labs is acquired
[1]New Relic acquired Pixie Labs to expand Kubernetes and cloud-native monitoring.
- 2014
Initial public offering
[1]New Relic completed its IPO and began trading on the NYSE under NEWR.
- 2013
Major financing and SaaS expansion
[1]New Relic raised $80 million and announced a transition of its software analytics product toward a SaaS model.
- 2012
Patent litigation begins
[1]CA Technologies sued New Relic over patents obtained through its acquisition of Wily Technology.
Products and positioning
An integrated enterprise observability platform for software engineering, DevOps, site reliability engineering, IT operations, and security teams.
Application performance monitoring
New Relic APM
New Relic's application performance monitoring capability observes web and mobile applications in real time. It is designed to surface transaction performance, errors, response times, and application behavior so development and operations teams can diagnose slow or failing software and connect user-facing symptoms with underlying services.
Infrastructure monitoring · 2022
New Relic Infrastructure
New Relic Infrastructure monitors hosts, cloud resources, containers, and other infrastructure components across public, private, and hybrid environments. It is aimed at DevOps, SRE, and IT operations teams that need a common view of system health, resource behavior, and infrastructure-related incidents.
Log management
New Relic Logs
New Relic Logs provides centralized collection, search, and analysis of log data as part of the broader observability platform. Log information can be examined alongside application, infrastructure, and user-experience telemetry to support troubleshooting and incident investigation.
Digital experience monitoring
New Relic Browser
New Relic Browser monitors browser-based application performance and the experience of end users. It helps teams examine page loading, client-side errors, interactions, and front-end performance while relating those signals to back-end application behavior.
Mobile application monitoring · 2013
New Relic Mobile
New Relic Mobile extends application analytics and performance monitoring to native mobile applications. The capability was part of the company's expansion to Android and iOS software and is intended to help teams understand crashes, responsiveness, and mobile user behavior.
Observability platform · 2020
New Relic One
New Relic One was introduced as a unified platform bringing together New Relic's observability functions. It is designed to let teams explore and correlate application, infrastructure, log, trace, browser, mobile, and other telemetry through a common analytical environment.
Kubernetes and cloud-native monitoring
Pixie
Pixie is the cloud-native monitoring technology acquired by New Relic in 2020. It focuses on Kubernetes workloads and provides visibility into software running in cloud-native environments, extending New Relic's observability coverage for containerized applications and clusters.
Security observability · 2022
New Relic Vulnerability Management
New Relic's vulnerability management capability was introduced for security, DevOps, SecOps, and SRE teams. It extends the platform into security-oriented analysis by helping teams identify and manage vulnerabilities in the context of the software and infrastructure they observe.
Controversies
2020
Black Lives Matter workplace controversy
During internal disagreement about the company's response to systemic racism, Lew Cirne circulated a memo stating that Black Lives Matter discussions were off the table. The memo prompted criticism and employee concern about workplace speech and corporate handling of social issues.
2020
Controversy over donations associated with Lew Cirne
Reports that Cirne had made donations to an anti-gay Christian school and an anti-Jewish evangelist caused some New Relic employees to feel uncomfortable and offended. The issue became a public controversy involving company culture and the conduct of a senior founder.
Brand decisions
2025
Integrate with GitHub Copilot agentic codingProduct launchBackground
AI-assisted software development increased the need to assess the runtime quality and performance of generated code.
Action taken
New Relic integrated with GitHub Copilot's agentic coding capability to help detect performance issues in generated code.
Aftermath
The integration connected New Relic's observability tools with an emerging AI-assisted development workflow.
2023
Accept acquisition by Francisco Partners and TPGM&ABackground
New Relic was facing operational pressure, including a reported $55 million operational loss in the preceding fiscal year and workforce reductions.
Action taken
The company agreed to an all-cash acquisition by Francisco Partners and TPG valued at approximately $6.5 billion.
Aftermath
The transaction closed in November 2023. New Relic became privately held and was delisted from the NYSE.
Transaction value. $6.5 billion (2023 acquisition announcement and closing)
2021
Acquire CodeStreamM&ABackground
New Relic was seeking closer integration between observability data and the developer workflow.
Action taken
The company acquired CodeStream, a developer collaboration tool.
Aftermath
The acquisition extended New Relic's product strategy into software development and collaboration environments.
2020
Launch New Relic OneProduct launchBackground
New Relic sought to broaden its identity from application performance monitoring toward a unified observability platform.
Action taken
The company launched New Relic One, combining and presenting multiple monitoring and analytics capabilities through a common platform.
Aftermath
The launch supported the company's expansion into infrastructure, logs, user experience, cloud-native workloads, and security-related observability.
2020
Acquire Pixie LabsM&ABackground
Kubernetes and cloud-native workloads were becoming important areas of observability demand.
Action taken
New Relic acquired Pixie Labs, a service for monitoring cloud-native workloads running on Kubernetes clusters.
Aftermath
The acquisition strengthened New Relic's coverage of containerized and Kubernetes-based systems.
2013
Move the analytics product toward SaaS deliveryStrategyBackground
New Relic was expanding its software analytics platform and sought a delivery model suited to cloud-based monitoring at scale.
Action taken
The company announced a SaaS transition under the internal code name Rubicon.
Aftermath
The SaaS approach became central to New Relic's cloud observability business and recurring software delivery model.
Recent events
Reported
New Relic launches infrastructure monitoring experience[3]
New Relic made its new infrastructure monitoring experience generally available to users, integrating infrastructure monitoring into its New Relic One platform.
Reported
New Relic announces New Relic CodeStream service[4]
New Relic announced that it would launch New Relic CodeStream, a service within New Relic One based on CodeStream.
Reported
New Relic announces Microsoft integration partnership[5]
New Relic announced a partnership with Microsoft to integrate New Relic CodeStream into Microsoft's IDEs and other chat and collaboration products.
Reported
New Relic acquires CodeStream[5]
New Relic acquired CodeStream, an application for developer collaboration within integrated development environments; the deal terms were not disclosed.
Reported
New Relic completes acquisition of IOpipe[6]
New Relic acquired IOpipe; the deal became official on November 1, 2019. Financial details were not disclosed.
Sources6 sources
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