Cloud Security Firm Qualys’ IPO Opens At $12/Share, Raising $71.8M
As of today, one more enterprise cloud startup is now a publicly-listed company. Qualys — trading as QLYS — opened trading today on the NASDAQ with shares priced at $12, in the mid-range of the expected offering of between $11 and $13. After a slow start in the morning, the shares climbed up to $14.85 during the day, to settle down at $14.12 at close. Not quite as much of a rise as Palo Alto Networks when it had its IPO in July 2012 — where it saw a 26% increase on its opening price of $46 — but still an increase of 17.7%.
As Qualys laid out in its investor prospectus published yesterday, it was offering 7,575,000 shares today, 6.7 million of those in shares from the company, and 875,000 from investors. All were sold, raising a total of $71.8 million. Back in June, when Qualys first announced its IPO, it had hoped to raise $100 million.
Executives, directors and pre-IPO shareholders now own 61.2% of the company.
Qualys says that it has some 5,800 enterprise customers using its cloud-based security products. About 70% of its user base is in the U.S. but it has customers in 100 countries. It says it performs some 600 million scans on networks and documents annually. It had revenues of $43.4 million for the first six months of 2012, up 17% from the same period a year ago.
Shareholders who sold shares at IPO included HP — which is also a competitor to Qualys. It sold all of its nearly 500,000 shares in the company. VC investors Trident Capital Partners and GRP Partners held on to their stakes, which are now at 20.81% and 8.30%.
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