Enterprise virtualization and storage firm Nutanix, Inc. has filed in a S1 registration form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicating its intention to go public in 2016.

The company did not indicate how many shares it was offering in the float but said it was initially looking to raise $200 million, although this figure could change by the time it comes to market.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley & Co. leading as book-running managers for the float, with J.P. Morgan Securities and Credit Suisse Securities also participating; Robert W. Baird & Co., Needham & Company, Oppenheimer & Co., Pacific Crest Securities, Piper Jaffray & Co., Raymond James, Stifel, and William Blair & Company are acting as co-managers.

Shares in the company will be offered on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol NTNX.

Founded in 2009, Nutanix delivers invisible infrastructure for next-generation enterprise computing, with the aim of elevating IT to focus on the applications and services that power their business.

The company’s Xtreme Computing Platform delivers enterprise compute and storage through the deployment of commodity computing servers which each run a standard hypervisor and the Nutanix Operating System, converging compute, virtualization and storage into a single solution to drive simplicity in the data center.

Nutanix touts that its solution allows customers to benefit from predictable performance, linear scalability, and cloud-like infrastructure consumption.

While their solution is highly regarded, including by Wikibon Senior Analyst Stuart Miniman, the company comes to its IPO with not so great financials, having registered a net loss of $126 million on $241 million in revenue for the financial year ending July 31, although of note that revenue figure was up 90 percent year-on-year; Nutanix is seeing strong revenue growth and boasts of 2,100 customers, however expenses have continued to rise at a higher rate over the same period.

Unicorn test

Nutanix’s decision to go public comes at a time where proceeds from IPOs are down 65 percent from last year, and IPO returns are in negative territory, according to a report from Reuters, but at the same time there have been some stand out listings including Atlassian PLC earlier this month.

As a high profile unicorn (a startup with a valuation of in excess of $1 billion) Nutanix will gain plenty of attention with its float, but like fellow unicorn Pure Storage, Inc.’s IPO earlier this year the market may not be so forgiving when it comes to investing in a firm that is losing money.

Prior to going public Nutanix had raised $312.2 million from investors including Blumberg Capital, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Riverwood Capital Partners, and Fidelity.

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