Reston's ScienceLogic continues to grow at an enviable clip as it embarks on yet another hiring spree and sets off on a long-term path that could lead to a Wall Street debut.
The software company projects 200 new hires companywide in 2022, boosting its headcount by 40%. With that growth comes a new senior hire this month specifically aimed at eventually preparing the heavily venture-backed company for the public markets. ScienceLogic said it's bringing in Todd Harris as its first chief legal officer and general counsel, marking a new level of maturity and international reach for the company, according to CEO and founder Dave Link.
“Our plan is to scale the company to serve what we believe is a massive total addressable market," Link told the Washington Business Journal. "The option of public markets is a great way to achieve that goal but just one of many options we’re evaluating.”
This time last year, Link had said that he expected SciencLogic to hit $100 million in revenue for 2021 — a milestone that he indicated Tuesday has been met. While he now declines to share specific figures, he said the company saw 30% year-over-year growth in annual revenue from 2020 to 2021 as demand for its products spiraled across the globe during the pandemic. Founded in 2003, ScienceLogic creates products for customers to digitally monitor all of their network systems and applications, manage issues and predict outages.
“As you scale over $100 million, there are different break points you reach,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
The company also plans to stretch its global presence in 2022, including subsidiaries in Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia with individual locations in Taiwan, Singapore and an upcoming outpost in India.
“By early this year, we’ll have eight international subsidiaries,” Link said. He said that brings a “complexity to the business” that will require a greater understanding of foreign laws.
Related: ScienceLogic was one of DC Inno's 2021 honorees for Inno on Fire. See the full list here.
Harris, who served as ScienceLogic’s external counsel for more than a decade, comes from Womble Bond Dickinson LLP, where he was a partner specializing in technology transfer issues. He's also been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
He's one of 40 new employees ScienceLogic has recruited in the first few weeks of the year as part of its 200 planned hires for the year. The company already saw a 30% increase in its workforce in 2021, bringing its total count above 500, Link said.
Roughly 50 of the 2022 hires will be based in Greater Washington, possibly at the company’s new 30,000-square-foot headquarters at 11955 Democracy Drive in Reston Town Center once it fully opens. Despite the higher headcount, that space is less than half the size of ScienceLogic's previous headquarters at 10700 Parkridge Blvd., also in Reston, which spanned about 63,000 square feet across several floors — a reflection of the Covid-era shift to more remote work.
“We decided to opt for a more modern layout emphasizing less dedicated cubicles and shift to hybrid workspace,” Link said. “The new headquarters represents a smaller footprint but allows us to create the right environment for our staff in the new operating model.”
Much of the company's growth has been squarely in the public sector, seeing 71% growth in the last year, per ScienceLogic. The company doubled its enterprise business and saw its international work grow 25%. Last year, it received a five-year, $43 million contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide its artificial intelligence operations (AIOps) tools in a big win that followed a $105 million megaraise by the company.
Link said the public sector offers plenty of opportunity as government agencies move their applications to the cloud in what's still a piecemeal approach. “You have to have one foot in both ponds," Link said. "We are really good at helping them manage that.”
