Contact: Brenon Daly
Many tech IPO underwriters are spending this week trying to catch the eye of FireEye. The advanced anti-malware vendor is currently baking off for an offering later this year that will likely create the next publicly traded information security company valued at more than $1bn.
FireEye has been tracking to the public market for some time, making moves earlier this year – such as adding several executive heavyweights and raising a ‘top-off’ $50m round of funding – that indicated an IPO may be close at hand. Further, it has the financial profile that will undoubtedly find buyers on Wall Street. According to our understanding, FireEye generated some $130m in bookings in 2012, about double its bookings from the previous year.
The company, which has more than 1,000 customers, has made huge strides since it emerged from stealth in mid-2006. It has pivoted from its initial focus on the network access control market to botnets to a broader advanced anti-malware platform. Along the way it has raised some $95m in backing from investors including DAG Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Jafco Ventures, Juniper Networks, Norwest Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital, which incubated FireEye.
However fitful FireEye’s evolution has been, the company has drawn fans in the information security market. According to a late-2012 survey by TheInfoPro, a service of 451 Research, FireEye was ranked as the second ‘most exciting’ infosec company. It trailed only Palo Alto Networks, which went public last summer and currently commands a $3.5bn market capitalization.
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