After establishing a presence in the United Kingdom earlier this year, Houston-based Graylog Inc. is eyeing further footprint expansions to serve its growing customer base in Europe.
Graylog, a developer of software offerings for log data collection and data analytics, announced in late February that the company would establish an office in London. Andy Grolnick, who joined Graylog as CEO in November 2020, said the company needed to have an additional office in Europe to facilitate with customer support functions for European customers.
"The company, from a sales, marketing and support perspective, has mostly been selling and marketing from Houston. Certainly, that's great when you're smaller," Grolnick said. "But as you try to grow the business, there are obvious challenges from a time-zone perspective, culture and language perspective."
Graylog is launching its presence in London virtually amid the continuing Covid-19 pandemic. The company appointed Taylor Rhoades as its country manager in the U.K. In addition to its new London presence, Graylog has an office in Hamburg, Germany, where the company was originally founded. Graylog's Hamburg office houses many of its engineering functions, Grolnick said.
Graylog was headquartered in Hamburg until 2015, when the firm relocated to Houston after raising $2.5 million in financing led by Houston-based venture capital firm Mercury Fund. Grolnick said while efforts are focused on growing Graylog's presence in the U.K., the firm does plan to expand its presence in Germany later in the year.
"As you're building your channel partners, being on the ground is a much better way to go," Grolnick said.
Graylog plans to grow its headcount across the globe this year, including in its Houston headquarters. The company employs a team of around 70 worldwide, and a little under half of Graylog's employees are based in Texas, Grolnick said.
Prior to joining Graylog as CEO last year, Grolnick previously served as president, CEO and chairman of Colorado-based LogRhythm for 14 years. LogRhythm was acquired by San Francisco- and Chicago-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo in 2018.
Graylog is headquartered at 1301 Fannin St. in downtown Houston.
