The little-known cloud security startup called Zscaler was up over 75% on Wall Street Friday in its first hours as a publicly traded company — the first big tech IPO of the year.
The San Jose-based startup confidentially filed for an IPO last year and listed its shares at $16 on Thursday to raise a total $192m, but, its first day of trading, the stock was up to almost $28 a share by midday and reached a peak of $33.37.
To put that in context, Snap IPO’d at $17 a share and peaked at $26.05 its first day. Not too shabby, Zscaler…
We must protect this cloud
Co-founded in 2008 by Himalayan immigrant Jay Chaudhry, Zscaler specializes in an area called software-defined perimeter (SDP) services — selling cloud security software that lets IT departments monitor all the traffic on a corporate network.
Yeah, we definitely know what that all that means….
Put simply, Chaudhry describes Zscaler’s software as a security check post, that makes sure “nothing bad comes in [and] nothing good and confidential leaks out.”
This reception is a good sign for the tech market
Not only is this good news for a lesser-known security company like Zscaler, as it looks for a competitive edge against “sexier” rivals, Cisco Systems and Symantec, but it also could bode well for the high-profile offerings coming down the pipe in the next few weeks.
Dropbox’s listing is scheduled for March 22, and Spotify is on the books for April 3 — and they’re looking for all the good mojo they can get.