Tenable shoots up 31.5% after IPO

Tenable CEO Amit Yoran (left) and Nasdaq VP Joe BrantukTenable

• The 16-year-old cybersecurity company Tenable held its IPO on Thursday.
• Shares shot up 31.5% by the close of markets, which values the company around $2.7 billion. 
• Tenable now trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker TENB. 

Tenable spiked 31.5% on its first day trading as a public company, giving the Maryland-based cybersecurity company a market cap of $2.7 billion when the closing bell rang.

The company listed on the NASDAQ on Thursday under the ticker “TENB.”

“For us, we see a future where cybersecurity and understanding cyber risk is more foundational than it’s ever been,” Tenable CEO Amit Yoran told Business Insider. “Going public is simply a bigger stage and an opportunity to execute on this vision with a much louder platform.”

Tenable describes itself as a “cyber exposure” company, and sells a Software-as-a-Service product to detect security vulnerabilities, as well as a platform to enable chief information security officers to measure the risk faced by their networks.

The company brought in $187.7 million in revenue in 2017, up 59.9% from $124 million in revenue in 2016. Like many newly-public tech companies these days, Tenable is not yet profitable.  

Though founded in 2002, the company gained notoriety in 2015 after raising a mega-sized $250 million series B from investors at Insight Venture Partners and Accel. That round valued the company at $550 million, according to PitchBook, and at the time was considered to be the largest-ever cybersecurity funding round to date .

The IPO was cause for celebration at the company, which had 1,054 employees as of March. More than 80 of those staffers from around the world made their way to New York City for company’s IPO, said Yoran, who joined the company as CEO in early 2017. 

“We did a reception for folks who are in town, and we’re doing a global event Monday of next week at each of our different offices,” Yoran said. “When you’re a tech company, your assets are your people. So we think it’s an incredible accomplishment for the team.”