In a good sign for Okta's IPO on Friday, the company priced its shares high with a $1.5 billion valuation
Okta initially said it would price shares between $13-$15 per share, then raised its range to $15-$17 earlier this week and on Thursday officially settled on a price of $17 per share.
That puts the Okta's market value at $1.54 billion, which is above the $1.2 billion valuation it had as a private company - good news for its investors as well as for other highly valued private tech companies looking at the public markets.
Okta plans to sell 11 million shares on Friday, which will raise $187 million, and it's already baked-in a second offering, giving the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 1.65 million more shares and bringing the total amount of money it could raise to just over $215 million.
We'll see if investors bite, just like they liked did for the first enterprise tech IPO this year, MuleSoft. Shares of MuleSoft popped 50% opening day and have stayed well above its $17 opening price ever since.
Okta will trade on the Nasdaq under the stock ticker "OKTA."
Okta's financials show growing revenue, and a narrowing loss (thanks to increased sales and marketing):
- Revenue of $160 million in fiscal 2017, up 86% from roughly $86 million in 2016.
- Gross profit (before sales, admin and R&D expenses) of about $104 million in 2017, up from about $50 million in 2016.
- Net loss of about $84 million in 2017, compared to $76 million in 2016.
- In the ramp up to the IPO, Okta cranked up its sales and marketing expense to about $119 million in 2017 from about $78 million in 2016.