In a possible sign of strength for technology initial public offerings, New York City-based database company MongoDB Inc.’s shares jumped 34 percent in their first day of trading today to close at $32.07 a share.

The company set its IPO price Wednesday evening at $24 a share, up from an initial guidance of $18 to $20 a share, raising $192 million. The current price gives MongoDB a market value of nearly $1.6 billion, spot on its valuation as of its last venture capital round.

Investors’ enthusiasm is partly a function of purposely setting a price that ensures a first-day pop in the shares, which is considered a positive sign. But the reaction also could signal a newfound interest in tech IPOs, especially among companies serving large enterprises, in a year when new issues have seen ups and downs.

Indeed, more planned IPOs were announced Thursday. Email delivery platform SendGrid and shopping subscription service Stitch Fix both filed documents to go public.

Founded in 2007, MongoDB develops open-source database software, including its namesake MongoDB NoSQL database, with a business model based on selling tools for the open-source software it develops.

The company’s business model has become popular with some startups, such as with the Hadoop big-data software provider Cloudera Inc., which also went public earlier this year. But the model faces a number of challenges, in particular the ability to turn revenue into profit. MongoDB lost $45.8 million on revenue of $68 million in the first six months of this year, though its losses relative to revenue are improving.

Some industry experts — not surprisingly, in particular, other database companies — are bullish on MongoDB’s prospects. Yu Xu, chief executive and founder of TigerGraph Inc., told SiliconANGLE that the IPO is validation that one size does not fit all in data management.

“Today’s data is magnitudes more complex, and is growing at incredible speed — meaning that enterprises need to look beyond traditional relational databases to manage it,” Xu said. “MongoDB has done considerable work in moving the database industry forward.”

DataStax Inc. Chief Executive Officer Billy Bosworth concurred, saying MongoDB’s offering is a sign of a “critical need” for a new era of operational data management.

“The relational database era is passing, and the new era will have the opportunity for midmarket players like MongoDB and companies such as DataStax with our focus on the enterprise,” he said. Despite heading a rival company in the space, or perhaps because of it, Bosworth said he was “excited to see a post-relational company entering the public markets.”

Likewise, Joe McCann, the CEO of NodeSource, said the IPO indicates increased acceptance of open-source technologies by large enterprises: “MongoDB’s IPO is a great example of the market continuing to see value and opportunity in open source technology and the commercial vendors who support it.”

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: Roelof Botha/Twitter