Riverbed IPO Bests Forecasts, Shares On The Rise

WAN optimization startup Riverbed Technology debuted on the Nasdaq Global Market Thursday following an initial public offering that raised nearly $85 million.

The San Francisco-based company brought in more money through the IPO than had been anticipated after raising both the number and price of shares to be issued. Riverbed offered 8.7 million shares of common stock at $9.75 per share, well above the forecast of $7 to $8.50 per share for 8.4 million shares.

Shares traded up nearly 48 percent at $14.42 Thursday afternoon. The company is listed under the symbol "RVBD."

The company, whose lineup of Steelhead network appliances helps improve the performance of branch office applications over the WAN, recently revamped its product line and has been garnering praise from solution providers for the strength of its channel partnerships and product portfolio.

"What I like about them is its exciting technology that every customer in Silicon Valley needs," said Aubrey Brown, founder and president of Corsa Network Technologies, a Campbell, Calif.-based solution provider. "It's simple to install and it shows immediate results."

For example, one company had stopped performing data backups over the WAN because the process took 13 to 14 hours to complete. After Corsa installed Riverbed products, the time was cut down to one hour and the company started doing the backups again, Brown said. "There were a lot of problems avoided."

Riverbed reported a loss of $17.4 million on revenue of $22.9 million for 2005. That compares to a loss of $9.8 million on revenue of $2.6 million in 2004, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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