QlikTech's Successful IPO

Radnor's Qlik Technologies (also called QlikTech) has successfully completed its long-awaited Initial Public Offering, selling at least 11.2 million shares at $10 per share, up from an estimated pricing of $8.50 to $9.50 in the prospectus. Subsequently, shares rose to over $13 and are currently just under $13, particularly impressive on a weak day for tech stocks. This gives QlikTech a market value of nearly $1 billion, and also gives the company more than $100 million in cash as well as stock it can use as a currency for acquisitions. It is trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol "QLIK".

This is the largest tech (IT) IPO in the Philly area for quite some time that I can recall, though QlikTech has Swedish roots and has a relatively small percentage of its employees in Radnor. The company maintained strong growth throughout the economic downturn and its revenue increased 66% in the first quarter of this year to $43.8 million.

QlikTech has major strategic choices: whether to remain focused on its niche of in-memory, relatively easy and rapid-deployment Business Intelligence solutions, or to expand its product portfolio through acquisition into other area of the BI space. It also faces challenges in terms of scalability for larger enterprise applications, and increasing competition. But anyone who has worked with BI technology as I have understands the significance of the breakthroughs QlikTech has achieved.

My own guess: they will inevitably be acquired, probably by either Oracle or SAP. But I could be wrong.