Nexsan, a provider of disk-based storage systems for long-term digital information storage, announced terms for its IPO on Friday. The Thousand Oaks, CA-based company plans to raise $55 million by offering 5 million shares at a price range of $10-$12. At the mid-point of the proposed range, Nexsan will command a fully diluted market value of $195 million. Nexsan, which was founded in 2000, booked $63 million in sales for the 12 months ended December 31, 2009. Nexsan has been free cash flow positive for each of the past three fiscal years. The company intends to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol NXSN. Thomas Weisel Partners is the lead underwriter on the deal.

If Nexsan is successful, it will mark the first enterprise storage systems IPO since 2007, when three enterprise storage companies went public: Data Domain ((DDUP); June '07), Compellent Technologies ((CML); October '07) and 3PAR ((PAR); November '07). Data Domain, a leader in deduplication technology, was acquired by EMC (EMC) in 2009 for roughly $2 billion following a bidding war with fellow enterprise storage vendor NetApp (NTAP). Compellent and 3PAR, both of which are projected to generate sales in excess of $150 million in 2010, currently command market capitalizations of $485 million and $573 million, respectively.