At the September 2013 Nasdaq listing of FireEye, a US-based provider of cyber-attack protection, the stock flotation price was close to double previous expectations at $20 per share, having originally been filed at a price range of $12 to $14 per share.
The initial public offering, in which almost 15.2 million shares were sold, raised $303.5m, generating proceeds of $282.3m after underwriting discounts and expenses. FireEye’s share price opened at $40.30 on its first day of trading, reaching a high of $44.89 and closing at $36.
Prior to the float, the company had raised about $100m, and secured investment from intelligence community’s quasi-corporate venturing unit, In-Q-Tel, in November 2009. In early 2013 it was reported that FireEye had raised $50m from Juniper, Goldman Sachs, Norwest and Silicon Valley Bank.
By March 2014 stock had risen fourfold since listing, and financial backers have been keen to get a slice of the action. In March, FireEye and venture capital backers sold 14 million shares at $82 each, raising about $1.1bn. In 2013 the company reported a 94% increase in revenue over the previous year.
FireEye, which had yet to turn an annual profit as of March 2014, trades at a rich valuation of about 69 times sales, according to FactSet. Bulls are betting that FireEye’s rapid revenue growth will continue for years, in which case the shares may not turn out to be so pricey in the long term, a Wall Street Journal report stated.
Morgan Stanley led the stock offering with Barclays, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.
Jeff Lipton, vice-president of venture and strategic investments at Juniper Networks, had a productive year, especially as he has been running the show for some time as a one-man corporate venturing unit.
With 13 of its 30 investments already exited, Juniper floated another investment in 2013, albeit with less pizazz. Violin Memory, a US-based maker of data storage equipment also backed by Japan-based conglomerate Toshiba and software company SAP, raised $162m in an initial public offering in late August, but shares trade below IPO price.
Violin Memory’s shares opened at $7.41 on its first day of trading, and dropped as low as $7 by September 30. In January 2014 the company announced that its chief operating officer, Dixon Doll, had stepped down from his position “to pursue other personal and professional opportunities”.
Doll’s departure followed that of Donald Basile, whose position as chief executive was terminated by Violin Memory’s board in December.
Other IPOs that have been achieved during Lipton’s tenure include Cotendo, acquired by Akamai; Cyan Networks, which floated on Nasdaq; Sentrigo, acquired by McAfee; Altor, acquired by Juniper; Ankeena, also acquired by Juniper; and several undisclosed investments.
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