Lost in the Twitter hype this week, Richardson, Texas-based Mavenir Systems (News - Alert) started trading today on the New York Stock Exchange this morning, November 7. The company raised a bit more than $53 million, with over 5.3 million shares selling at an initial price of $10 a share.
Mavenir's IPO was underwritten by Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank Securities and Needham and Company. The company 's IP-based voice, video, rich communications, and messaging services solutions are deployed among 9 of the top 20 global mobile service providers, according to its SEC (News - Alert) S-1 filing. It also boasts of being the company to enable MetroPCS to conduct the first deployments of VoLTE and RCS 5 services to its subscribers as well as providing the back-end for Deutsche Telekom's deployment of joyn RCS service.
Worldwide, Mavenir has provided solutions to over 120 mobile carriers, including three of the top five service providers in the United States and four of the top five pan-European mobile service providers in Western Europe. Its customer list includes AT&T, T-Mobile (News - Alert) US, Vodafone, Tele2, Deutsche Telekom AK, and Telstra.
Last year, the company had around $74 million in revenue with an operating loss of $14.6 million, but the numbers look better (and upward) for the first half of 2013. At the end of June 30, 2013, the company had reported revenue of $48.2 million with an operating loss of only $2.6 million.
Skimming through the company's S-1, Mavenir's Wall Street story is built around the world of LTE (News - Alert) and mobile devices. Its mOne Convergence Platform provides the solutions for service providers to deliver anything from voice through video via software. Proceeds from the IPO will be used for activities such as "financing growth" -- spending more to speed up sales and marketing -- developing new products, and funding capital expenditures, acquisitions, and investments.
The downside to Mavenir's IPO might be its net losses and that it didn't get as much per share as it initially appeared. The company has logged $103.5 million in net losses as of June 30, 2013 while its November 5, 2013 amended S-1 filing penciled in a price between $15 to $17 a share --a far cry from the $10 opening price of November 7.
Still, Mavenir's performance on Wall Street is going to be carefully monitored in the weeks and months to come. Firms such as Metaswitch will consider if the time is right for a run at an IPO while larger entities such as Ericsson (News - Alert) and GENBAND may be looking to pick up some strategic technology and business relationships at a reasonable price.