Updated with first trading and executive comments:

Cloud-based subscription startup Zuora Inc. is the latest technology company to make its first public offering of stock, and it did so with a bang today.

The company late Wednesday sold 11 million shares for $14 a share, raising $154 million. That was above the range of $11 to $13 a share set Tuesday, which in turn topped the original range of $9 to $11.

But as soon as trading began, shares shot up 43 percent, to about $20 apiece, closing the day at $20 even. That’s another indication of strong demand by investors for new offerings. Although first-day pops such as this are seen as a positive, they also mean the company could have raised even more money.

Zuora Chief Financial Officer Tyler Sloat said in an interview that pricing is a delicate balance between raising the maximum amount and reaping the benefits of a pop for marketing and for rewarding initial investors. “The reality is, we can’t control the pop,” he said.

Founded in 2007, Zuora offers a software-as-a-service platform that automates businesses’ subscription order-to-cash operations in real time. The company said its platform enables customers to launch new businesses, shift products to subscriptions, implement new pay-as-you-go pricing and packaging models, gain new insights into subscriber behavior and disrupt market segments based on new pricing methods.

The company services about 1,000 companies, including Box Inc., Komatsu Ltd., Rogers Communications Inc., Schneider Electric SE, Toshiba Corp., Xplornet Communications Inc. and Zendesk Inc. Coming into the IPO, Zuora recorded revenue of $167.9 million for the fiscal year through Jan. 31, up from $113.0 million a year ago. Despite its relative age, it has yet to record a profit, booking a $47.2 million loss, up from $39.1 million the year before.

Zuora’s listing adds momentum to a year that’s shaping up to be a big one for public offerings. Most have hit the market running, with Dropbox Inc.’s $756 million IPO March 23 seeing shares rise 40 percent post-debut, while Spotify Technologies AB, through an offering of existing shares, saw its price up 13 percent from its reference price on its first day of trading.

The IPO window opens

A growing list of tech startups is also lining up to go public, with more than a few looking closely to Zuora’s debut for another indication of whether market confidence in tech IPOs remains strong. Szech antivirus software firm Avast Software s.r.o. said today that it aims to raise about $200 million with an early May offering on the London Stock Exchange, valuing the company at about $4 billion when coupled with a planned secondary offering of $800 million, according to a source cited by Reuters.

In addition, cloud computing applications provider Pivotal Software Inc. is offering 37 million shares at $14 to $16 a share in a listing scheduled for April 19, while cybersecurity firm Carbon Black Inc. was the latest company to file its IPO paperwork April 10. And event site Eventbrite Inc. and freelance marketplace Upwork Global Inc. are readying IPOs for later this year, according to the Wall Street Journal today.

Sloat said Zuora went public in part because it has been preparing for the move for several years and partly because its large customers want to be assured it’s a solid, sustainable company. “It brings a level of maturity to the company,” he told SiliconANGLE.

Indeed, large industrial companies such as Schneider Electric and Komatsu that are putting sensors into “internet of things” devices constitute one of Zuora’s largest segments. “They’re thinking about how do I take what I have and create new business models focused on new [subscription] services for customers,” Sloat said.

Asked partly in jest whether Facebook Inc. — whose Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg spent two days this week being grilled by Congress about the data gathering associated with its advertising model and opened the possibility of a paid offering — might be a prime prospect for Zuora, Sloat said it very well might be. “The ad models are not going to be sustainable,” he said. “Many print media are customers. Ads are not the way they’re going to grow.”

As for why the IPO windows seems to have opened up recently, Sloat said it’s a result of businesses such as Dropbox and Zuora customer Box building up their businesses for years, in particular with the subscription services Zuora enables. “You’re seeing a crop of businesses that are sustainable,” he said.

Zuora’s stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ZUO.

Founder and Chief Executive Tien Tzuo (pictured) talked about his company and the kinds of customers it serves in an interview at the company’s Subscribed conference last June in San Francisco:

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: Zuora