By Heather Somerville
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - AppDynamics, a maker of software to manage and analyze applications, has raised $158 million, evidence that some highly valued companies are still garnering investor support despite a pullback in late-stage venture capital.
The new funding round, announced by the company on Monday, puts AppDynamics' total financing at $315 million since its founding in 2008. The San Francisco-based company's valuation nudged up to $1.9 billion from $1.1 billion in July 2014, according to a source close to the deal.
AppDynamics president and chief executive officer, David Wadhwani, said investors held the company to higher standards than in previous funding rounds, a sign that while there is ample money for fundraising tech firms, investors are growing more reluctant.
More "unicorns," or startup companies valued at $1 billion or more, are struggling to maintain their valuations. For instance, mobile payments company Square Inc (N:SQ) went public earlier this month at a startling 42 percent discount from its $6 billion private market valuation.
Wadhwani said AppDynamics had to prove to investors it is spending less each year to acquire customers and getting existing customers to spend more on app management services.
"There are these anomalous periods in the evolution of the market where people invest in hype rather than invest in fundamentals," he said. "I'm happy to say that's changing."
AppDynamics helps large businesses monitor the performance of their web and mobile applications, looking for bugs or system failures. AppDynamics can locate lines of code that are problematic and fix them, often in seconds.
The financing round was led by General Atlantic and Altimeter Capital, with Adage Capital, Industry Ventures, Goldman Sachs (N:GS) Co and Cross Creek Advisors joining.
The company's relatively modest valuation increase suggests that investors are less eager to see valuations inflate too quickly. Until recently, companies have easily doubled or tripled their worth, sometimes within months.
For instance, software company Zenefits earned a $4.5 billion valuation in May, up from $500 million last year. Cyber security company Tanium almost doubled its valuation, from $1.8 billion to $3.5 billion, in September when it raised $120 million.
But this month, Airbnb raised more than $100 million while keeping the same $25.5 billion valuation it commanded in June, a source close to the company told Reuters.
AppDynamics has 1,600 paying customers, including Citrix Systems Inc (O:CTXS), eHarmony, Kraft Inc, NASDAQ Inc and Nike Inc (N:NKE).
In February, the company announced $150 million in annual gross revenue, based on the previous 12 months of bookings. It declined to offer more recent financial information.