Qualys Set for IPO on The NASDAQ Friday

In the first big security industry IPO since Palo Alto Networks made its debut as a public company back in July, Cloud-based security and compliance solutions provider Qualys, is set to go public and start trading on the NASDAQ exchange on Friday.

The Redwood City, California-based company said late Thursday that it would offer 7,575,000 shares of its common stock at $12.00 per share, a price in the middle of the narrow $12-13 expected range.

Of the total offering, Qualys is selling 6,700,000 shares, and stockholders are offering up 875,000 shares. The 6.7 million shares would net the company $71.8 million. However, the underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to 1,136,250 additional shares of common stock at the time of the IPO to cover over-allotments. In the case of the full over-allotment, the company would net $84.5 million.

If all goes as planned, Qualys will commence trading on the NASDAQ Stock exchange on Friday (Sept 28) under the symbol “QLYS.”

According to the company’s S1 filing, Qualys had revenues of $57.4 million in 2009, $65.4 million in 2010, and $76.2 million in 2011.

The Company’s QualysGuard Cloud Platform is currently used by over 5,800 organizations in more than 100 countries.

According to the S-1 filing, Philippe Courtot, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, who has injected $23.2 million of his own cash into the company, owns nearly 40 percent of company shares prior to the offering.

Former cybersecurity czar, Howard Schmidt, who joined Qualys’ Board of Directors in June 2012, owns 102,688 shares of the company.

Also, according to the S-1, Hewlett Packard, which competes with the company in a small capacity, owns 496,699 shares, all of which will be sold in the offering.

Institutional investors in the company include Trident Capital and GRP Partners, neither of which is selling shares in tomorrow’s IPO.