A tale of two IPOs

So while I was at PC Forum, my partner, Ned Carlson, sent me an email on the recent IPO filing of Seven Networks. Having talked to a number of bankers, we always thought that one needed $6-8mm of quarterly revenue, profitability for at least 1-2 quarters, and good visibility for the rest of the year in order to go public. It seems that the filing for Seven Networks goes against the grain. According to its website, “SEVEN is a leader in Out of the Office™ technologies; our mobile email software makes it simple and affordable to access corporate and personal data while on the go. SEVEN’s software provides secure, real-time access to email and PIM information via a wide variety of mobile devices.” The company has a blue chip list of customers like Cingular Wireless and Sprint PCS in the United States; Globe Telecom, KDDI Corp, NTT DoCoMo, Optus and Singtel in Asia Pacific; and mmO2 and Orange in Europe. However, we still do not understand how it can go public with the following numbers: 2002 revenue of $6mm, net loss of $19mm and 2003 revenue of $7mm and a net loss of $13mm. What bothers my partner, Ned Carlson, even more is that some of the investors are even selling in the $100mm raise. What I hear is that they are going to execute a roll-up strategy. Isn’t Visto already doing this as well? Does anyone know the story behind this IPO filing?

On another front, you have Brightmail (an anti-spam vendor) which recently filed with some nice numbers. Revenue for FY03 was $26mm up from $12mm the previous year. In addition, the company had net income of $1.2mm for FY03. These are definitely numbers in line with what we were told on the IPO front. Concerns could be the concentration of customers via Microsoft. According to the Computer Business Review in the UK, of the 305 million mailboxes they screen, 145 million are Hotmail and only 5 million are enterprise.

It is amazing how 2 companies with such different numbers can file. All I hope is that both of these companies can meet the expectations of investors and deliver on their respective stories. What we all do not need is a return of the speculative IPO. Tim Oren and Fred Wilson both comment on the action this week.