Good news for tech stocks: an IPO went just like it was supposed to.
Software company Atlassian closed its first day of trading at $27.78, up more than 32 percent from its initial public offering price of $21 this morning. That values the company at $5.78 billion, about 75 percent more than its reported $3.3 billion private valuation last year.
That's some positive news after less-than-stellar IPOs this year for vaunted startups like Box and Square. But don't take the success as a referendem on "unicorns"—tech companies valued at over $1 billion, since Atlassian isn't particularly representative of that fabled creature. The company has been profitable for more than a decade and was mostly bootstrapped, meaning it didn't depend on huge chunks of venture capital financing to grow. Which raises the question: why go public at all, and why now?
"We wanted to be a great company, and the best companies are public companies, they can invest in growth," says co-founder and co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. He's vague about the reasoning for the timing but says the decision was less about the state of the market and more about Atlassian being ready, both culturally and structurally, for an IPO.
The company famously doesn't employ a sales staff, relying on online sales and a standard pricing scheme, but Cannon-Brookes says that won't change now that the company is public. "We've been very clear with investors that our model is a huge competitive advantage for us, and provides massive value for our customers," he says.
And he and co-founder and co-CEO Scott Farquhar will have quite a bit of say in the matter. They still own 37.7 percent of the company each—stakes that at today's closing price are worth more than $2 billion.
