FireEye brings more legitimacy to new security solutions with IPO filing

Security company FireEye filed to go public last week, joining only a handful of security companies to IPO in the last two years.

FireEye monitors your company’s network by setting up virtual machines that watch anything coming in or out of the system. It learns what malware activity looks like and then stops anything it recognizes as a threat in the virtual machine before it ever reaches you. It joins cloud security company Qualys and advanced firewall Palo Alto Networks, which both held IPOs in 2012, after waiting for chief executive Dave DeWalt to say it was the right market environment to go public in.

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The company hired on DeWalt, former McAfee chief executive, to take the company in this direction. The spirited DeWalt told VentureBeat at the time that he fully intended to go public in 2013, and it seems he’s keeping his word. At the time, DeWalt said he had seen companies go public before their time and that the market just wasn’t in the right place for FireEye. It seems he feels more confident in both the product and market now.

According to the filing, the company has proposed a maximum aggregate offering price of $175 million. Though it increased revenue to $83.3 million in 2012 from $33.7 million in 2011, the company still had a net loss of $35.8 million.

Eight months ago, FireEye took on $50 million in funding. Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, Juniper Networks, and other existing investors provided the round. DeWalt explained that he was doing everything he could to make the company sustainable in the “long term.” Investors must agree that despite three years of net losses, the product has potential to start making money once the ramp-up phase is over.

The round was used to increase its sales team, perhaps in an effort to dry up losses.

FireEye is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif. and has raised a total of $101 million since being founded in 2004 by Ashar Aziz, the company’s chief technology officer. We have reached out to DeWalt and will update this story upon hearing back.