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Cybersecurity firm Carbon Black set to join initial public offering parade
Cybersecurity firm Carbon Black Inc. is going public, filing its initial public offering paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.
It’s the latest firm to go the IPO route in what’s shaping up to be a big year for new issues. The company filed for a $100 million offering, but that’s a common placeholder that could well go higher.
Founded under the name of Bit9 in 2003, Carbon Black offers an endpoint security platform that enables organizations to take on cyberattacks and deploy what the company describes as the best prevention strategies for their businesses.
Along with endpoint detection, the company also offers antivirus tools that use its Cb Predictive Security Cloud, a platform that uses big data analytics to defend data against advanced cyberattacks such as malware and ransomware. Another of Carbon Black’s products, Cb Defense, captures and analyzes endpoint data in real time, integrating with outside products from more than 70 companies such as VMware Inc., IBM Corp. and Splunk Inc.
Not surprisingly, given its near archaic age in tech industry terms, the company has been an active acquirer, in more recent years buying companies such as Confer Technologies Inc. in 2016.
Despite its age, Carbon Black enters its IPO with a seeming fetish for losing money more characteristic of young startups. TechCrunch reported that despite improving its bottom line in 2016, it lost even more money in 2017, remarkable for 15-year-old company seeking to go public. Carbon Black had a $56 million net loss on $162 million in revenue for 2017, up from a $45 million net loss on $116 million in revenue for 2016.
Most of the company’s revenue comes from security subscription products sold to midsized to large enterprises that use its software-as-a-service security platform to protect themselves from cybersecurity risks.
Coming into the IPO, it’s hard to assess exactly how much Carbon Black has raised, since the company is now a combination of several former companies. Axios pegged the figure at $230 million from investors that include Accomplice, Highland Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, 406 Ventures and the Blackstone Group.
Image: geralt/Pixabay
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