TECH STARTUP LOGENTRIES has been sold in a deal worth $68 million (€59.6 million) only five years after it emerged from a research project in UCD.

Nasdaq-listed Rapid7 announced it was buying the company, which is now headquartered in Boston with a research-and-development team in Dublin.

Logentries was founded by UCD PhD graduate Trevor Parsons and Viliam Holub in 2010, and it has since grown to about 70 employees. The startup launch followed a decade of joint research between UCD’s performance engineering lab and IBM.

Rapid7, worth $905 million (€793 million) on its current share price, said nearly all of Logentries’ staff had now joined the parent company and it would “continue to build this team and invest in its presence in Ireland”.

Logentries founders Trevor Parsons, left, and Viliam Holub Nick Bradshaw Nick Bradshaw

Logentries collects and analyses reams of computer-generated log data, information which Parsons has described as being like CCTV for software networks.

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Companies, including clients that range from the Discovery Channel to Macy’s and Sesame Street, can use its technology to “cut through the noise” of data and quickly identify flaws in their systems.

Sesame Street's Big Bird Associated Press Associated Press

Some 39 Logentries staff who became Rapid7 employees after the buyout were granted shares worth a combined $21 million (€18.4 million) in the public company as part of the deal.

Logentries was the 2010 startup of the year at NovaUCD, the college’s hub for new technology businesses.

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