Computer data storage company Fusion-io made 18% gains during its first day of trading yesterday, with previous corporate backers including Dell Ventures, Sumitomo Ventures and reportedly Samsung Ventures.
It is unclear what paper or real gains Samsung, Dell or Sumitomo have made on their initial investments in Fusion-io, or whether they still hold stock. Sumitomo, Dell and Samsung did not respond to requests for comment.
US social network Facebook is a big customer of Fusion-io, which relocates important data for active processes to users’ servers, in an attempt to improve processing speed.
However, Fusion-io said in a statement yesterday it had raised $233.7m in its offering and had a market capitalisation of nearly $2bn. Fusion-io’s shares floated at $19 each, above the $16 to $18 per share expected range, and Thursday’s opening price of $25 a share values the company at about $1.95bn.
Dell and Sumitomo invested in Fusion-io’s $47.5m Series B round in April 2009. Subsequently Fusion-io raised $45m in a series C round from venture capital firms Meritech Capital Partners, Accel Partners, Andreesen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates and Triangle Peak Partners.
The deal follows a number of venture-capital-backed IPOs in the technology sector including music company Pandora, which raised up to $141.6m last week. This was backed by publisher Hearst as well as venture capital firms Crosslink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, Greylock Partners, Labrador Ventures and GGV Capital.
Other recent technology initial public offerings include social network LinkedIn last month, and a $750m IPO being lined up by coupon company Groupon.