Jamf Holding Corp., a maker of software that helps enterprises manage their employees’ Apple Inc. devices, today upped the target price for its forthcoming initial public offering to between $21 and $23 a share.

The increase is a sizable jump over the $17 to $19 range Jamf was eyeing previously. The company, which counts IBM Corp., SAP SE and reportedly Apple itself among its customers, is now on track to raise as much as $423 million including underwriters’ over-allotment options.

Minneapolis-based Jamf is expected to hit the stock market later this week, less than three years after private equity firm Vista Equity Partners acquired a controlling stake in the company. It could receive a valuation as high as $2.68 billion in the IPO thanks to the increased price range. That would represent a big return for Vista Equity Partners, which paid $733.8 million in 2017 to buy its controlling stake. 

Jamf’s device management products are used by information technology teams to manage employee Macs, iPhones and iPads, as well as Apple TV units installed in conference rooms. The company’s product portfolio includes tools for handling day-to-day device administration tasks as well as a Mac-specific endpoint security engine called Jamf Protect.

Jamf generated a total of $204 million in revenue across its offerings in 2019, up from $146.6 million in 2018. The company fared well in the first quarter too, growing sales by 37% year-over-year, to $60.4 million.

There are multiple factors at play behind Jamf’s growth. The company’s user base is expanding rapidly, increasing from about 36,000 customers to more than 40,000 during the first three months of 2020 alone, while the amount individual customers spend on its software is also rising. Jamf reported in the IPO filing that dollar-based net retention rates, a measure of whether existing customers increase their spending, exceeded 115% in each of the nine quarters through March 31.

Jamf is not profitable, but its losses are narrowing. In the quarter ended March 31, the company recorded a net loss of $8.3 million, down from a $9 million net loss 12 months earlier. Jamf’s gross margin ticked up 5% in the same period, to 75%.

Jamf’s solid finances are a reflection of the strong position it has carved out for itself in the Apple ecosystem. Since launching in 2002, the company has grown from a startup into the industry’s only “vertically focused Apple infrastructure and security platform of scale,” as the IPO filing puts it. Jamf maintains a close relationship with Apple that “enables us to fully support new Apple innovations and OS releases the moment they are made available by Apple,” the filing continues.

But the competitive landscape became somewhat more complicated for Jamf last month when Apple acquired Fleetsmith Inc., a maker of software for managing macOS and iOS devices in the workplace. Fleetsmith’s products  target smaller businesses, whereas Jamf focuses on larger organizations. However, Jamf noted in its IPO paperwork that Apple could theoretically use Fleetsmith’s platform in the future to compete more directly with its products. 

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