Jive stock up nearly 30 percent at close of its first trading day

Jive Software kicked off its initial public offering at $12 a share on the Nasdaq this morning, and closed nearly 30 percent up at $15.05.

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The company produces social business software, which enterprises use as an internal communication system outside of the traditional e-mail and instant message options. Competitors of Jive include startups Yammer and Moxie, plus Salesforce’s Chatter. Jive filed to go public in August of this year and offered 13.4 million shares, raking in $161.3 million in capital this morning.

“I think it’s super positive,” said Aaron Levie, chief executive officer of cloud storage company Box, in an interview with VentureBeat. “We had a bunch of IPOs in the mid and late 2000’s that were in the enterprise space. Jive is the first really meaningful IPO in this next generation category, this next breed of software.”

Levie’s company, Box, is a partner with Jive, and offers its cloud storage product in Jive’s application marketplace. The company is cheering Jive on from a “friend and partner standpoint.” When asked what this meant for venture backed enterprise cloud companies, Levie repeatedly said that this was a big win. He believes that the rules are changing for enterprise focused companies, and that investors are going to see this IPO and want to push more capital into the vertical.

But some questioned whether Jive was big enough to go public today. During a conference call today, Jive’s chief executive Tony Zingale explained that was simply not the case.

“Oh yeah, if you look at our prospectus, we are in excess of the $100 million run rate for the company,” he said. “Well above the size required to go public.”

In the future, Zingale said Jive may be looking to acquire with its new capital. While he wouldn’t completely reveal Jive’s product roadmap, he did explain Jive is particularly interested in big data, or the mounds of information about consumers and companies stored on the Web through social media and other channels. Jive is also particularly proud of its cloud and on premiss delivery methods, calling it one of its bigger competitive edges.

“[Competitors are] just really jealous that half of the market is not available to them because they don’t deliver out of the private cloud,” said Zingale.

As for the future, Zingale explained that the company isn’t completely shy to being acquired. He couldn’t speak to the intentions of anyone who would be interested in buying Jive, but did say that any offers would be taken to the board to be appropriately considered.

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The company’s Nasdaq ticker symbol is JIVE. It’s stock is continuing to go up in after hours trading today and hit a high of $15.81 around 1:40pm eastern time. It closed 29.5 percent hire than its opening price.

“Jive is up 30 percent?” said Levie. “That means the enterprise is now now 30 percent sexier.”

[Chart via Yahoo Finance]