CrowdStrike shares soar 80% above IPO price in Wall Street debut

CrowdStrike share price is surging after its debut on Wall Street. The security software vendor’s initial public offering (IPO) is one of the few success stories of 2019.

CrowdStrike finds success with IPO launch

CrowdStrike was founded by former McAfee executive, George Kurtz, in 2011. Kurtz said the cybersecurity company’s success comes from its use of cloud technology.

‘There’s been no Salesforce of security. And we think we’ve taken the right approach and created the right architecture to be that fourth pillar of cloud computing,’ said Kurtz.

The company counts corporations like Amazon as clients. CrowdStrike even led an investigation into the US Democratic National Committee’s server data breach in 2016.

‘Some of the world's largest enterprises, government organizations, and high-profile brands trust us to protect their business,’ said CrowdStrike in its IPO filing.

When the corporation launched its IPO, it was valued at $6.6 billion with shares priced at $34. In contrast to big-name 2019 IPO launches from Uber and Lyft, CrowdStrike has surpassed expectations since going public. Though CrowdStrike’s 2019 revenue doubled to $249.8 million, the corporation still reported a net loss of $140 million in fiscal 2019 because of sales and marketing expenses.

What’s next for CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike will continue its spending on marketing to expand the corporation's reach. Kurtz believes that the expenses will help CrowdStrike’s share price rise.

‘Our [CrowdStrike‘s] sales and marketing spend has really been focused on capturing market share and delivering our solution into geographies that we haven’t been in and into verticals that we didn’t have the penetration when we first started the company. So we feel comfortable with the unit economics and we feel comfortable with the marketing spend given where we are as a company,’ said Kurtz.

Investors will watch CrowdStrike stock to see if its initial success on Wall Street can continue.