Nimble Stock Flashes in Opening Trading as Storage Market Shines
Apparently the market loves flash hybrid storage newbies. Shares of flash storage maker Nimble Storage (NMBL) bolted out of the gate in the company’s NYSE debut on Dec. 13, opening at $31.10, later touching $35.13, before closing the day’s trading at $33.93, or more than 60 percent above the IPO price.
Apparently the market loves flash hybrid storage newbies.
Shares of flash storage maker Nimble Storage (NMBL) bolted out of the gate in the company’s NYSE debut on Dec. 13, opening at $31.10, later touching $35.13, before closing the day’s trading at $33.93, or more than 60 percent above the IPO price. The issues advanced again at opening on Dec. 16, moving more than 6 percent ahead to north of $36 in early trading before closing the day at $35.50.
In mid-October, Nimble filed with the SEC for a proposed IPO, originally asking for $16-$18 a share, but subsequently upped the price to $21 per share for 8 million shares of its common stock.
After the IPO, Nimble venture capital investors Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital each own 18.4 percent of the company, with Lightspeed Venture Partners controlling 13.9 percent, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News. None of the venture firms sold their shares in the IPO, leaving the full proceeds for Nimble.
For Milpitas, Calif.-based Nimble, which began operations in 2007 and shipped its first flash-optimized storage products in 2010, last Friday’s IPO wasn’t a culmination but rather a starting point, said Suresh Vasudevan, the company’s chief executive.
“This is the beginning of the next stage of the journey for us,” he said.
Well, maybe for others, too. A closer look shows Nimble’s early success on the public market reflects the wholesale movement of the flash storage segment from a corner of the market to Main Street. With major players Dell, EMC (EMC), HDS, HP (HPQ), IBM (IBM) and NetApp (NTAP) sporting all-flash arrays, the segment noticeably has gained in prominence this year.
The examples are numerous—here’s but a partial list:
- In February, Dell joined a group of investors pouring $51.6 million in a Series B investment into Skyera, an all-flash array technology startup. And, NetApp expanded its flash storage strategy with an enterprise class all-flash array and plans for new all-flash family.
- In April, IBM pledged to spend $1 billion in research and development to design, create and integrate new flash solutions into its servers, storage and middleware lineup. That followed its acquisition in August, 2012 of Texas Memory Systems (TMS), a privately held flash memory maker.
- In September, EMC bought ScaleIO, a privately held Israeli startup specializing in server-based storage software. And, Western Digital (WDC) paid $645 million in an all-cash deal for flash storage maker Virident.
- And, distributors got in on flash as well, with Avnet (AVT) signing a distribution deal with IBM-owned TMS in March, and another with Nimble in September.
As for Nimble, while the company’s sales grew nearly 300 percent in its last fiscal year, it will have to continue its revenue growth and slow its losses to keep investors happy and justify its lofty stock price. We’ll know more after Jan. 31, at the close of its fiscal year.
