Four things to know before Nutanix goes public

#Nutanix, an enterprise cloud company and a tech unicorn, is expected to debut on the public market Friday. The company on Wednesday raised the price range for its initial public offering to $13 to $15 a share from a previous $11 to $13. The company plans to sell 14 million shares to raise up to $241.5 million. Underwriters have the option to buy 2.1 million additional shares of class A stock.

Nutanix had 3,768 end customers as of July 31, 2016, which includes more than 300 Global 2000 companies.

The company NTNX, +0.00%   filed to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “NTNX.”

The lead underwriters on the offerings are Goldman, Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan.

Here are four things to know before it goes public:

A possible down round

Nutanix received a valuation of more $2 billion in August 2014, at the time of its latest funding round, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Even if the company prices at the top of its stated price range, it would net a market cap of $1.8 billion, based on the shares outstanding.

Growing revenue

Nutanix has posted growing revenue of $127 million in 2014, $241 million in 2015 and $445 million in 2016.

But its net losses have also widened from $84 million in 2014, to $126 million in 2015 and $168 million in 2016.

The company said it expects to see net losses for the foreseeable future.

The competitors

Nutanix exists in the category of “hyperconverged infrastructure,” which it says it pioneered when it sold the first version of its operating system in October 2011. Overall, it offers a server that provides networking and storage for businesses.

Still, it has a number of competitors including software company #VMware Inc. and large companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, #Cisco Systems Inc. and #DellTechnologies, which offer their own versions of #hyperconverged infrastructure and software storage products.

The investors

Nutanix is a venture-backed company, backed by firms such as Lightspeed Centure Partners, which owns 22.7% of the company before the offering, and Khosla Ventures, which owns 10.8%.

Other investors include Blumberg Capital II, which owns 5.7% and Riverwood Capital Partners, which owns 5%.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/four-things-to-know-before-nutanix-goes-public-2016-09-27