Financial

Carbon Black files for IPO

Carbon Black's SEC filing says it hopes to raise $100 million. The Boston area company provides antivirus and endpoint security services to protect customers from cyberthreats.

By Zaid Shoorbajee

April 10, 2018

Cybersecurity company Carbon Black has filed for its initial public offering, the company announced on Monday.

While Carbon Black said in a press release that the number of shares and the price range offered hasn’t been determined, its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says it hopes to raise $100 million.

The company applied to list its stock on the Nasdaq stock index under the symbol “CBLK.” The company names J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley as underwriters assisting it in the IPO.

Based near Boston, Carbon Black provides anti-virus and endpoint security services to protect customers from cyberthreats. The company says that it has created categories in endpoint security, such as application control, endpoint detection and response (EDR) and next-generation antivirus (NGAV).

In its filing, Carbon Black reports $162 million in revenue in 2017, up from $116.2 million in 2016 and $70.6 million in 2015. The company says it serves 3,700 customers globally, including 30 of the Fortune 100.

According to the Boston Business Journal, Carbon Black was rumored for a while to be in acquisition talks with larger companies such as IBM or VMWare.

Carbon Black got involved in a public relations fight last summer with DirectDefense, another cybersecurity company, which alleged that a flaw in one of Carbon Black’s products was leaking sensitive data to a public repository allowing third parties to profit off of it.

Tenable, another endpoint security company, is reportedly also taking steps toward filing for an IPO.