App performance management company AppDynamics files to raise $100 million in IPO

AppDynamics, a company that sells software for application performance management (APM), today submitted its S-1 regulatory filing, kicking off the process to go public.

The company is seeking to raise $100 million in the deal, and it’s looking to trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol APPD, according to the filing.

The lead underwriters are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Barclays, UBS, Wells Fargo, William Blair, and JMP Securities.

In the nine months that ended on October 31, AppDynamics posted a $95 million net loss on $158.4 million in revenue. That means revenue was up considerably year over year despite the ongoing loss: AppDynamics registered a $92.3 million loss on $102.7 million in revenue for the nine months that ended on October 31, 2015. Most of the revenue comes from subscriptions, but licenses and professional services also make contributions to the top line.

AppDynamics has been in a position to go public for a while. One of its top competitors, New Relic, went public in 2014. Other competitors named in the filing include Dynatrace, BMC, CA, HP, and Microsoft. Unlike New Relic, AppDynamics can be run in companies’ on-premises data centers, not just as a cloud service.

AppDynamics started in 2008 and is based in San Francisco. It had 1,186 employees and 1,975 customers as of October 31, according to the filing.

Last year, AppDynamics appointed David Wadhwani as its chief executive, replacing cofounder Jyoti Bansal.