"Digital security company Rapid7, with growing sales and losses, files for IPO
Curt Woodward
Boston Globe
06/11/2015
Rapid7, a cybersecurity software company based in Boston, is heading to the public stock markets about 15 years after it was founded — the first Boston-area technology company to publicly disclose IPO plans this year.
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Rapid7’s sales have been increasing at a pretty healthy pace: The company collected about $46 million in revenue in 2012, followed by about $60 million in 2013 and nearly $77 million in 2014.
But Rapid7 has never turned a profit, meaning investors will have to trust that its plan to expand the company will result in noticeable earnings in the future. Rapid7 reported that its net loss grew from more than $12 million in 2012 to more than $32 million in 2014. The company still has about $33 million in cash.
Rapid7’s software helps protect customers from digital attacks by analyzing network traffic and other data to show who is accessing a company’s computer systems. That’s a more modern approach to digital security, Rapid7 said, than the previous generation’s attempts to put up firewalls and other blockades.
Its competitors include large companies such as McAfee and IBM, and smaller providers like Mandiant.
That's an interesting twi$t, 'eh?
Public-market investors have shown some resistance to the idea that enterprise software companies will be able to shed their past of significant losses once they become public. Box, a money-losing seller of business collaboration software, has been the poster child for this trend, seeing its shares fall about 20 percent since it went public in January....
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Where were they yesterday, huh?
