Open source startup NetBox Labs raises $20 million in funding after spinning out of IBM-acquisition NS1 

In February, IBM acquired network automation SaaS solutions NS1 for an undisclosed sum, making it IBM’s second acquisition of 2023. As part of the acquisition agreement, IBM said that NetBox Labs will spin out from NS1 into its own company, with IBM also becoming an investor in the startup.

Fast forward almost two months later, NetBox Labs announced Tuesday that it raised $20 million in Series A funding to help build and manage complex networks. The round was led by Flybridge Capital, with participation from GGV Capital, Grafana Labs CEO Raj Dutt, Mango Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, IBM, the Founder Collective, and Entrée Capital.

As part of the funding, NetBox Labs also announced that David Aronoff of Flybridge, Raj Dutt of Grafana Labs, and Glenn Solomon of GGV Capital will join its board of directors.

The Series A cash infusion will enable NetBox Labs to scale the development and delivery of open-source NetBox and NetBox Cloud, a hosted NetBox solution with specific performance and service level agreements and commercial support. NetBox Labs’ customers include Chewy, Dartmouth College, and Constant Contact, which are already using NetBox Cloud as a network source of truth to drive their network automation strategy.

Commenting on the funding, David Aronoff, general partner at Flybridge, said: “Once in a decade you have the opportunity to support an organization and leadership team that has proven its ability to win previously and whose technology has widespread customer adoption before even raising Series A funding. NetBox Labs is such a company. We believe NetBox’s role as a network source of truth is critical to the future of network automation and will fundamentally change the industry.”

At the helm of NetBox Labs is Kris Beevers, former CEO of NS1, who is leading NetBox Labs as co-founder and chief executive officer, with NetBox Lead Maintainer Jeremy Stretch also serving as a co-founder. Former NS1 executives in finance, operations, technology, product, and business development, as well as more than a dozen dedicated team members, round out the NetBox Labs staff. The company will be headquartered in New York City with a global, remote workforce.

NetBox Labs also helps customers accelerate network automation by delivering open, composable products and supporting the network automation community.

“After piloting NetBox and seeing an 80% reduction in tickets related to manual errors on our network, we quickly made the move to NetBox Cloud and haven’t looked back,” said Felix Windt, CTO at Dartmouth College. “Using NetBox Cloud has created a culture shift within our IT organization that has had profound results on our ability to automate our network and better serve the many stakeholders in our community.”

Over the past seven years since NetBox was developed, its technology has proven to be a critical tool at the center of the networking strategies of every type of enterprise, from Fortune 500 and major telcos to mid-market enterprises and tech companies. With 12,000 stars on GitHub, NetBox has tens of thousands of enterprise installs and hundreds of vendor and technology integrations. It combines the capabilities of IP address management (IPAM) and data center infrastructure management (DCIM). NetBox eliminates messy spreadsheets and serves as the foundation to drive device provisioning, automated testing, monitoring updates, and more.