Apigee helps enterprises re-architect their apps to make them suitable for cloud, big data and IoT
Apigee, an API software platform provider that helps enterprises build and scale apps, is the latest cloud provider to propose an initial public offering of shares of its common stock.
The firm, backed by notable technology investment firms including BlackRock, SAP Ventures and Norwest Ventures, has enlisted Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Securities to help manage the process of going public.
The company hopes to raise a modest $87m through the IPO according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
While Apigee claims some of the most reputable firms in the world as customers (eBay, the BBC, Orange, Equinix) and secured close to $200m in seven funding rounds since it was founded in 2004, the company’s financials raise some questions about the company’s viability in the long term.
Like Box, the pure-play cloud storage and collaboration provider that also recently went public (raising over three times when Apigee is seeking), the company has accrued a notable amount of debt compared with what it intends to raise through the IPO.
The company’s gross billings were $36.7m, $43.1m and $63.8m in fiscal 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. But it incurred net losses of $8.3m, $25.9m and $60.8m in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. It racked up losses of $26.8m in the six months ended January 31, 2015.
Nevertheless, it’s clear enterprise app development is becoming API-centric, as an increasing number of IT services are being joined up.
“We believe that application programming interfaces, or APIs, are a critical enabling technology for the shifts in mobile, cloud computing, big data and the IoT and that APIs are a foundational technology on which digital business operates. We believe that a new and expansive market opportunity exists to help enterprises adopt digital strategies and navigate the digitally driven economy,” the company said in its SEC S-1 filing.
“Today, it is difficult for many businesses to fully participate and innovate in the digital world because traditional enterprise software is not designed to interact with and connect to the rapidly evolving digital economy. The IT architectures deployed at most businesses are based on thousands of application servers communicating with databases, other applications and numerous middleware layers, each using thousands of custom integrations and connectors. These legacy architectures generally cannot publish APIs in a way that can be used by application developers.”