SugarCRM Plans To Go Public Next Year

By Pulse 2.0 Staff ● Nov 6, 2012

SugarCRM is a customer management software company that competes against companies like Oracle Corporation and Salesforce.com.

The company may go public next year, according to CEO Larry Augustin in an interview with Bloomberg. And SugarCRM wants to ensure that they get the right size and metrics. SugarCRM was cash-flow positive in 2011, but will “burn some cash this year.”

SugarCRM’s billings increase 23% for the third-quarter ending in September compared to a year ago.  They are also up 54% over the first 9 months of the year.

In terms of funding, SugarCRM raised a total of $79 million from New Enterprise Associates, Silicon Valley Bank, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and other investors.

SugarCRM’s platform allows customers to track leads and deals.  Around 800,000 people are using the free and open-source version of SugarCRM and there are around 200,000 people paying between $30 and $100 per user each month.  Customers have the ability to run the software on their own computers in a “private cloud.”

By going public, it would be Mr. Augustin’s second go at having an IPO.  He took another company called VA Linux public in 1999.  On the first day, VA Linux’s stock soared 700% to a valuation of around $12-$15 billion. And its quarterly sales figure at the time was around $12 million.

Other CRM companies that recently went public include Workday and Splunk.