Workiva Inc. became a model customer for its own products on Friday after it went public on the New York Stock Exchange in an offering that put 7,200,000 shares up for grabs at a price of $14, the midpoint of the $13 to $15 range it set in October. The launch completes the circle on the Utah-based firm’s journey to make it easier for public companies to file paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

For the last few decades, that reporting has been performed almost entirely manually, taking up valuable time and resources for financial professionals better invested elsewhere. Workiva launched under the name WebFillings in 2008 with the first solution automation products and immediately struck a nerve among the world’s largest corporations.

Over the next few years, the Ames, Iowa-based startup attracted more than 2,500 companies to its cloud-based platform, including 60 percent of the Fortune 500 as well as household names such as Chevron Corp and Best Co., Inc., among others. Workiva ballooned to more than 850 employees in the process, establishing offices across 15 cities around the world and changing its rebranding earlier this year to reflect its new position. It joins the ranks of only about 20 Iowa-based companies that are publicly traded.

Dave Tucker, the firm’s senior director of platform development, credited much of that success to the rise of the public cloud in a recent interview with SiliconANGLE, saying that the ability to consume hardware resources on-demand allowed the team to focus on product development instead of logistics. Now, the company is reaping the fruits.

However, Workiva has yet to turn a profit. It posted net losses in each of the last three years and reported a loss of $28.4 million through the first nine months of 2014. The company faces challenges in breaking out of its rather narrow market, noted The Des Moines Register. While it has succeeded in building an enviable blue-chip client list, recruiting smaller companies will be more difficult.

The public offering is worth a total of $101 million, not including the 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,080,000 shares that has been given to the underwriters. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, which is also involved in Hortonworks’ IPO on the other side of the trading floor, is acting as as a book-running manage along with Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, while Robert W. Baird & Co, Raymond James & Associates, Inc. and Stifel are serving as co-managers.

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