UPDATED 20:49 EDT / JULY 31 2019

CLOUD

Cloudflare reportedly files to go public in September

Content delivery network provider Cloudflare Inc. is set to go public in September after filing a confidential S-1 application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a report today from Business Insider.

Cloudflare was first reported to be considering an initial public offering this year in October, but those plans were speculated to be on the back burner in March after the company raised $150 million from Franklin Resources Inc. That round is said to have valued Cloudflare at $3.2 billion with an IPO likely to see a valuation of somewhere in that vicinity as well, possibly a bit higher.

Founded in 2009, Cloudflare offers a range of cloud services to improve services for websites. Best known for its CDN, the company also offers video deliverydenial-of-service protectiondomain registrationsecurityDNS services and more.

While competing with some of the biggest names in cloud services, specifically Amazon Web Services Inc., Google LLC and Akamai Technologies Inc., Cloudflare also sometimes works with them as well. In September, the company joined with Google, Microsoft Corp. and others on an initiative to lower bandwidth costs for their enterprise users.

That Cloudflare would be looking for an exit for its investors this year isn’t surprising. Although the time to exit by venture capital-backed firms is getting longer, at 10 years of age Cloudflare has already past the median period for a tech startup looking to go public. Investors, who have put $332.1 million into the company to date, include Fidelity, Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Baidu Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.

Should Cloudflare go public, it won’t be the first CDN provider to do so this year. Smaller rival Fastly Inc. debuted on the New York Stock Exchange May 17 to a warm welcome from investors, popping 50% on its first day of trading on a debut price of $16 per share.

Post-debut, the performance of Fastly hasn’t been great, its share price dropping as low as $17.13 a month later before rising again to have closed today at $21.70 compared to $23.99 on its first day. While investors will be looking at Fastly’s performance when considering Cloudflare, notably the company’s share price has never dipped below its float price, unlike IPOs from Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc.

The performance of Uber and Lyft aside, most IPOs have performed strongly on debut this year with a record number of tech-related companies going public. Recent successful IPOs include Livongo Health Inc., Health Catalyst Inc., Medallia Inc. and Crowdstrike Holdings Inc.

Image: Cloudflare

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