Zscaler ZS 90,10 -3,32 -3,55% has opened for trading on the Nasdaq exchange. Founded in 2007, it makes it’s IPO eleven years later, as the first major technology offering of 2018.
The Nasdaq exchange issued a press release, in which it welcomes Zscaler to the exchange. (Nasdaq Welcomes ZSCALER, INC. (NASDAQ: ZS) to the Nasdaq stock market).
“In the cloud-first world, network security becomes increasingly irrelevant. The goal is to securely connect the right user to the right application on any public or private network; this couldn’t be done with retrofitted legacy approaches, so we built a global security platform from scratch, 100 percent in the cloud. We are excited today to announce our listing on Nasdaq, an exchange that embodies innovation, which will further our mission to help organizations transform to the cloud so they can benefit from its scale and agility, securely.” – Jay Chaudhry, Founder and CEO, Zscaler
Zscaler operates its cloud security platform from 100 datacenters across the globe, and fits well with the SD-WAN model, providing the application level security for traffic into an out of remote branch offices via Local Internet Breakout. Zscaler provides centralised control and security to the distributed cloud access model now prevalent in network deployments across the globe.
Following the launch of the stock, Zscaler shares more than doubled in value on Friday. A MarketWatch article (Zscaler shares more than double after IPO as CEO touts cloud-based security) places the market capitalisation of Zscaler at $3.87bn at the close on Friday. With a volume of 16.8mn shares, it’s clear there is a lot of demand for the company’s stock.
Zscaler subsequently issued their press-release (Zscaler Announces Closing of Initial Public Offering and Exercise of the Underwriters’ Option to Purchase Additional Shares), which states that 13.8mn shares were initially issued, at $16/share. Trading opened with the shares at $27.50, and closed at $33.00, an increase in value of 106%. There are probably a lot of happy Zscaler employees at the moment.