The IPO market may be cooling down for a lot of tech companies, but that doesn't seem to be the case with Atlassian, the business-software maker best known for its JIRA and HipChat products.
Atlassian set its IPO price range between $16.50 and $18.50, giving it a $3.8 billion valuation at the high end, according to its latest paperwork filed with the SEC. That's slightly higher than its last private-market valuation of $3.3 billion from last year.
That means Atlassian could turn out to be the most successful tech IPO of the year, drawing solid interest from the public investors and giving the company a market cap exceeding its private valuation.
Some of the most anticipated tech IPOs this year saw lower-than-expected interest from the public market, significantly cutting their value on their way to going public.
Square, for example, lost nearly half of its value when it went public earlier this month compared to the $6 billion valuation it got in the private market last year — though shares popped on the first day of trading. Box also saw its IPO price bring its market cap below its previous VC valuation when it went public earlier this year.
One of the reasons for Atlassian's popularity may have to do with its strong financials. Unlike a lot of the tech startups that are losing money, Atlassian has been profitable for the last 10 years, and is still growing at a solid pace. It's also achieving its growth without spending too much on sales and marketing, which is typically the biggest expense item for most software companies.
Atlassian was founded in 2002, but it hasn't taken any outside investment. The last two funding rounds from Accel and T. Rowe Price were done to let employees sell some of their shares.
At $18.50 per share, Atlassian will be able to raise $370 million from its IPO. But the price range could change again before the day of listing, depending on how much interest it draws from investors.
