Rapid7, a Boston, Mass.-based cybersecurity company, has filed for an $80 million IPO.
According to the tech firm’s publicly available S-1 form, Rapid7 will begin selling its common stock “as soon as practicable.” The company was founded over a decade ago and has raised more than $90 million in funding to date.
The company will join an elite group of security companies that have moved from private venture capital markets into the public investing arena in recent years, which include FireEye (FEYE) in 2013 and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) in 2012. Industry watchers are keeping their eyes on other security firms such as Veracode, Bit9 + Carbon Black, LogRhythm, Mimecast and Okta that appear poised to go public in the near future, too.
Rapid7 sells security software and services that help companies understand their IT environments and reduce their exposure to cyber attacks. One of its more popular offerings is its Metasploit penetration testing products, which it acquired in a 2009 deal.
The company has 3,900 customers in more than 90 countries, including nearly a third of Fortune 1000 companies, and its revenue increased to $76.9 million last year, up from the $60 million it made the year before, according to the SEC filing. Its top line has also more than doubled from $31 million in 2011.
Some of the company’s customers include federal security agencies, like the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin (LMT) and General Dynamics (GD), and others like Amazon (AMZN) and American Express (AXP).
After raising $30 million in a Series D funding round at the end of last year, CEO and president Corey Thomas told SecurityWeek that filing for an IPO would be a “natural progression” for the company, although Thomas didn’t reveal any details or future plans at that time. Thomas also told technology news site eWeek that funds raised would help build the company’s engineering and sales teams.
“There is a heightened and increasing level of awareness and concern over cyber security that’s being driven by the perfect storm,” Thomas told SecurityWeek, mentioning the rise of the cloud and mobile, the ease of buying hacking tools online, and the frequency of big data breaches.
The company has selected Morgan Stanley to lead the IPO. Its proposed NASDAQ ticker is “RPD” and its investors include Bain Capital Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures
