Data center company Nutanix Inc (NASDAQ:NTNX) has breathed some life into the moribund technology flotations market, raising some US$238mln in the process.
The market has waited a long time for the enterprise cloud platform provider, which first signalled its intention to float on Nasdaq at the end of 2015, to make its market debut but it finally pulled the trigger today, selling shares at US$16 a throw, which was slightly above the expected range of US$13 – 15.
The initial public offering (IPO) price implies a stock market valuation of around US$2.2bn. Perhaps more importantly for future technology IPOs, it has managed to get its new share issue away at a higher price than its most recent private equity funding round, which was at US$13.40 over two years.
San Jose, California-based Nutanix claims to make information technology infrastructure invisible with a platform that “delivers the agility and economics of the public cloud – without sacrificing the security and control of on-premise infrastructure”.
Essentially, it allows customers to keep some parts of their information treasure trove in-house while other parts, presumably the less critical data, are stored in the cloud.
Like a lot of technology companies, it is growing the top line rapidly but not yet making a profit. In its most recent financial year it saw revenue rise 84% year-on-year to US$445mln, but it still made a net loss of US$168mln.
The company said it expects to see net losses for the foreseeable future.