Palo Alto Networks closer to IPO, sets price range at $34-$37 a share

Firewall security company Palo Alto Networks priced the shares for its initial public offering today, setting the range at $34 to $37 a share.

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Palo Alto filed to go public in April this year, with expectations of raising $175 million in the offering. That is now bumped up to $263,810,000 if its shares sell at the maximum $37 per share price, according to its amended filing. The company will sell 6.2 million shares, around 1.5 of which will come from existing stock holders. Forbes notes that two of its investors — Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital — will hold onto their stakes.

The New York Stock Exchange will host the stock under the ticker symbol PANW.

The company provides a unique firewall that caters to the idea of “bringing your own device,” or BYOD. That is, as IT departments become more fearful of people using personal technology in the workplace, they will use solutions such as firewalls to block certain services such as Dropbox and Facebook. Some of these services, however, can add to the productivity of an employees, and business recognize this. Thus Palo Alto Networks came up with a firewall that is able to block specific parts of an application, as determined by the IT manager.

So your company can allow access to Facebook’s status sharing feature to promote content but can block the chatting feature if they think it’s too distracting. They can also block things like attachments in e-mails or photo-sharing in order to keep proprietary information secret.

In 2011, Palo Alto Networks made $118.6 million in revenue, 143 percent higher than revenue for 2010.

Wall on fire image via Shutterstock