Backed by venture firms NEA and Lightspeed, Fusion-io markets a next generation storage memory platform that boosts data access speeds. The company plans to raise $209 million in its IPO by offering 12.3 million shares at a proposed price range of $16 and $18; it had originally filed to offer shares at $13 to $15 before boosting the price range by 21% in a sign of strong deal demand. At the midpoint of the upwardly revised range, Fusion-io would be valued at $1.7 billion. Fusion-io plans to price on Wednesday after the market close and list on the NYSE on Thursday under the ticker symbol FIO. Goldman, Sachs & Co., Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan are the lead underwriters on the deal, which is one of three deals scheduled to price on this week's US IPO calendar.
Fusion-io seeks to address what it refers to as the "data supply problem," or low levels of server utilization caused by the widening gap between processing and storage performance. It markets a data decentralization platform that helps enterprises improve processing capabilities by relocating "active" data from centralized storage to servers, thereby improving processing capabilities by up to 10x and significantly reducing costs. Its platform, which bundles proprietary hardware and software, has been shipped to over 1,500 end users since inception, including companies such as Facebook and Apple, as well as OEMs like Dell, HP and IBM.
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