Startup JFRog May File For IPO At $1.5 Billion

The New York Stock Exchange celebrated the listing of Virgin Galactic with a modest fireworks display AFP / Johannes EISELE

Israeli-based startup JFRog is considering an IPO next year.

As reported by TheMarker on Monday, the DevOps tools provider is targeting a listing on NASDAQ with a valuation of $1.5 billion. Unnamed sources told the financial newspaper that executives at JFRog are already in talks with New York investment bankers to select an underwriter. However, a JFRog spokeswoman said that "the company doesn't respond to rumors or speculation."

Founded in 2008, JFrog develops several products that are designed to automate the distribution of trusted software releases. Some of its big-name clients are Google, Netflix, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, and Cisco.

Chief Technology Officer Yoav Landman told TheMarker last year, "JFrog's vision is that the entire world of software updates will be done constantly and in the background – without any interference."

"A decade ago, there would be a handful of updates every few weeks or months, but the time between updates has fallen to every few days or few hours to the point that it has become an almost unbroken stream."

Last year, the company said that they are valued above $1 billion after receiving $165 million in a Series D funding round led by Insight Partners and joined by Battery Ventures, Spark Capital, Sapphire Ventures, and other investors.

Recognition
On Oct. 23, Bank of America recognized JFRog for its leadership in the industry at the 11th annual Bank of America Technology Innovation Summit.

"JFrog prides itself on driving innovation that eliminates the pain of software updates and changing the way the world operates by focusing on speed, trust and developers efficiency," said Shlomi Ben Haim, Chief Executive Officer of JFrog.

DevOps boom
In the past, developer tools have not been able to attract significant investments compared to their software product counterparts. It wasn't until Microsoft's investment in GitHub for $7.5 billion that interest in DevOps developers was ignited.

And since DevOps tools are designed for connecting IT teams to software development where the process of building, testing, all the way to its release is streamlined, developers have a growing market as long as there is a need to speed up software development.