Cloud computing firm Smartsheet to join the IPO league

It appears that IPO window is wide open in 2018, especially for the tech companies. Triumphant IPOs by Dropbox and Zscalaer are encouraging tech companies to go public. The latest private firm to join the IPO league is Smartsheet – a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. Recognized as one of the best private firms in cloud computing in Forbes 2016 Cloud 100, Smartsheet that was founded in 2006 has now filed to go public. With this move, the company is looking to raise $100 million.

Smartsheet will debut its shares on the NYSE under the symbol SMAR. The cloud services provider said that the entire proceeds from the offering will be used to build the team, strengthen marketing initiatives, invest in data center operations, and expand globally.

Smartsheet raised $52 million in a funding round in 2017, the highest in its 11 years of existence. This raised the total investment to $120.5 million, with a valuation of $852 million. CEO Mark Mader owns 2.3% of stake in the company and co-founder Brent Frei holds 8.9% stake.

Out of the 287 global listings in Q1 2018, U.S. accounted for 36 IPOs

For the year ending January 31, 2018, Smartsheet reported revenue of $111.3 million, up 66$ from $67 million compared to the previous year. However, net loss widened to $49.1 million from $15.2 million a year ago. The Bellevue, Washington-based company generates almost 35% of its total revenue from customers based outside the U.S.

Companies that offer offline tools to manage work processes better are seen as the company’s rivals and the list even includes some major tech companies like Google (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT). To boost its services, and incorporate novel technologies into its workflow, Smartsheet recently grabbed Convverse.AI. With this latest acquisition, the company aims to incorporate both artificial intelligence and natural language processing into its cloud platform.

By offering services in 190 countries, Smartsheet has a huge customer base of over 92,000, including more than 74,000 domain-based customers and Fortune 500 companies like Cisco (CSCO), Starbucks (SBX) and others.

This year seems to be an active time for IPOs. And after Dropbox, all eyes are set on Spotify, the most anticipated company that is expected to make its public debut next week through a direct listing.

According to a report from EY, out of the 287 global listings in Q1 2018, U.S. accounted for 36 IPOs and in terms of proceeds, U.S. IPOs contributed $12.8 billion to global IPO proceeds of $42.8 billion. This represents a year-over-year volume growth of 44% and proceeds growth of 17% in U.S. Overall, the outlook for the rest of 2018 is expected to be positive, aided by strong equity markets and corporate earnings results.