Dive Brief:
- Cloudera submitted its public S-1 filing Friday as it prepares for its long-awaited IPO. The big-data startup plans to raise $200 million, potentially giving the company a $4 billion valuation.
- Cloudera had revenue of $261 million in its fiscal 2017, up from $166 million in 2016, according to the filing.
- Intel is the biggest stakeholder in Cloudera, having invested $740 million on the company in 2014. Intel is restricted from acquiring more than 20% of Cloudera’s stock, however.
Dive Insight:
Cloudera is battling the perception that Intel, as its biggest investor, will drive Cloudera's future. Unlike other recent tech IPOs, Cloudera is in a unique position where a leading tech company is one of the primary investors, potentially clouding the company's ability to maintain its identity.
Though Cloudera has a strong market potential, the company faces competition from legacy data management providers and public cloud providers who provide similar offerings. And many of these competitors have an advantage because of their greater name recognition, longer operating histories and larger customer bases, according to the S-1 filing.
This year's market for tech IPOs is stronger than last year, when few tech companies entered the public markets and investors were standoffish. Following Snap Inc.'s successful public debut, more companies have followed suit in bids to go public, including Okta and Mulesoft.
Demand for Big Data solutions is high and has continued to increase in recent years. By 2020, revenue from Big Data and analytics is projected to reach more than $203 billion, according to a recent IDC report.
