Dash0 Launches with $9.5M to Help Companies Gain Cost Transparency in Observability Spending

As businesses face economic uncertainty, managing cloud costs has become a high priority. One area that can heavily impact budgets is observability – the process of collecting data from systems to ensure they are running properly. According to the article, observability is the second highest cloud expense for many organizations after infrastructure costs alone.

Dash0 is a new startup that aims to bring more transparency and control to observability spending. Founded by Instana CEO Mirko Novakovic, Dash0 takes an open source approach based on the OpenTelemetry framework. This allows customers to clearly see which systems and services are generating costs.

While observability typically accounts for 10-20% of cloud budgets, Dash0 doesn’t promise lower costs directly. However, its focus on transparency may help customers optimize spending over time. The company also aims to improve the OpenTelemetry experience through intuitive dashboards and integrations.

Dash0 recently raised a $9.5 million seed round led by Accel to launch publicly. However, it will focus initially on product development rather than sales. The startup currently employs 21 people mostly in engineering roles. Dash0 plans to contribute back to the OpenTelemetry community while distinguishing itself through stronger end-user tools.

If Dash0 can deliver on its vision, it may offer businesses an alternative to proprietary observability platforms like Datadog. By providing clearer visibility into costs and optimizing the open source framework, Dash0 wants to help companies better manage this increasingly expensive but critical part of their cloud operations. Its success could also drive further adoption of OpenTelemetry standards.