Date:
Eric Savitz, Forbes, Apr 19, 2012
Big-data software play
Splunk
has had a spectacular debut today on its first day of trading in the public market.
Last week, the company raised its expected IPO price range to $11-$13, from $8-$10; the stock actually priced last night at $17, and the shares (SPLK) have since traded as high as $34.72, before settling back a few points.
Bankers on the deal include Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch, UBS, Pacific Crest and Cowen.
In the January 2012 fiscal year, Splunk had revenue of $120.96 million, up from $66.25 million in FY 2011. The company lost $10.99 million in the latest year, following a loss of $3.81 million on year earlier.
Read more.
From WSJ Newest Tech IPO Doubles on Day One, By BEN WORTHEN, Apr 19, 2012
Founded in 2004, Splunk set out to build a Google for machine data-essentially a search engine for all the data that servers, network switches and any device such as smartphones with a processor spits out when those devices are in use. The company's name is a play on "spelunking," or caving.
Automotive website Edmunds Inc., for instance, uses Splunk's software to organize the data generated by the thousands of interactions that take place on the site into information that executives can use to make decisions.
Splunk is capitalizing on an explosion of interest in Big Data as businesses generate more and more data sets that they need to collect, organize and analyze. While many large tech companies, such as IBM and EMC are now pushing similar data management and analytics products, Splunk is widely seen as the first pure play to go public.
At the end of January, Splunk had more than 3,700 customers, including Bank of America Corp. Comcast Corp., and Harvard University. The company charges an upfront license fee for its software.
Editor: Splunk specializes in turning machine-generated data into real-time insights, but it has recently expanded from covering device data into website logs and hot area of social interaction data.