Cloudflare rakes in $525 million after pricing its IPO higher than expected
- Cloudflare, a web security and content delivery company, raised $525 million on Thursday after pricing its shares higher than expected.
- The company sold 35 million shares for $15 apiece, after raising its target price range on Wednesday to between $12 and $14, up from $10 to $12.
- According to the amount of outstanding listed in Cloudflare's initial public offering filing, the company will be valued around $4.4 billion when it starts trading sometime on Thursday.
- Watch Cloudflare trade live.
2019's initial public offering bonanza continues.
Cloudflare scooped up $525 million in fresh funding on Thursday after the web security and content delivery company priced its shares higher than expected.
The company sold 35 million shares at $15, slightly higher than its updated range of $12 to $14. Cloudflare initially marketed a range of $10 to $12 per share.
Based on the designated number of shares outstanding in Cloudflare's IPO filing, the company will be worth around $4.4 billion when it hits the public markets sometime on Thursday.
Cloudflare generated $129 million in revenue during the first six months of 2019, but still lost $37 million, compared to $87 million in sales and a loss of $32 million during the same period last year. That means its sales are growing faster than its losses.
The company counts around 10% of Fortune 1000 companies as customers, and it said its platform blocked an average of 44 billion cyber threats a day last quarter.
The company is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday under the ticker "NET."
Cloudflare joins a long list of venture-backed, money-losing startups that have paraded into the public markets this year. Some companies like Uber and Lyft have stumbled, sinking below their offering prices.
SmileDirectClub, a digital health startup, went public on Wednesday raising $1.3 billion. Shares tumbled about 27% on its debut.
But the broader IPO market is outperforming most benchmark indexes so far this year.
The Renaissance Capital IPO ETF, which tracks the performance of newly-public companies, has risen more than 30% this year, while the S&P 500 is up around 20%.