Splunk, ‘Big Data’ Analyzer, Prices IPO At Top Of Range

Splunk Inc., a developer of software that helps companies analyze data, plans to sell 13.5 million shares for $8 to $10 in its initial public offering.

That would value the nine-year-old San Francisco company at as much as $925 million. The company plans to sell about 12.5 million shares, while insiders will sell the remainder. It will trader under SPLK on Nasdaq.

Splunk was founded by Godfrey Sullivan, the former CEO of database developer Hyperion Solutions until it was acquired by Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and Erik Swan, a former VP for Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE: DIS) Internet properties. The company said it has raised about $40 million from venture capital firms including Sevin Rosen, Ignition Partners and August Capital.

The company claims more than 3,300 customers in 75 countries use Splunk Enterprise software to collect and index all the data generated by an enterprise for analysis. Because the data are distributed over the enterprise, it claims analysis goes much faster than traditional analysis of data stored in a silo, or one place.

In the current market where companies like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) have already placed Cloud-based services into the consumer sector, a company like Splunk, with its focus on big data, might tempt a buyer such as Oracle Corp., International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) or Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ).

Aside from insiders and directors from its financial backers, Splunk's board includes new Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) CEO Scott Thompson and Salesforce.com Inc.'s (Nasdaq: CRM) Executive VP, Graham Smith.

Like many fast-growing technology companies, Splunk's revenue growth has been high but it hasn't yet reported a profitable fiscal year.

For the nine months ended Oct. 31, Splunk reported its net loss widened to $9.7 million from $2 million a year earlier, while revenue rose nearly 80 percent, to $77.7 million. Results for the quarter ended Jan. 31 haven't been published.

Underwriters are Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Securities and Bank of America Merrilll Lynch with UBS, Pacific Crest and Cowen & Co, acting as co-managers.