Gigamon Files For IPO

Gigamon did not indicate the number of shares to be offered nor their expected price range. Goldman Sachs, BofA Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are involved as lead underwriters, and Gigamon intends to trade under the symbol "GIMO."

Founded in 2004 and based in Milpitas, Calif., Gigamon's product family includes GigaVUE, GigaSECURE, GigaSMART and GigaTAP, each of which tackles a different network monitoring or management function, from virtual environment monitoring to packet slicing and time stamping. The idea is that enterprises can fully monitor their physical and virtualized networks, while consolidating the overall number of tools needed to troubleshoot, saving money in the process.

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According to a Form S-1 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Gigamon ended its fiscal 2011 year with $68 million in revenue, and in the first three months of 2012 posted $16.7 million in revenue, up from about $10.07 million in the year-earlier quarter.

It made $16.93 million in profit for the full-year 2011, though swung to an $857,000 loss in the first quarter of 2012, down from about $786,000 in profit a year earlier.

In its prospectus, Gigamon company cites virtualization, cloud computing mobility and big data as major trends changing how enterprise and service providers design, operate and monitor their networks. It cites data from Enterprise Strategy Group stating that 78 percent of IT leaders surveyed would find a traffic visibility fabric approach useful in their network environment.

Gigamon also calls out third-party channel partners as contributing to "a substantial portion of our revenue." Gigamon is distributed in North America exclusively by Interlink Communications Systems.

The network and security spaces, in particular, have been attracting IPO candidates again, from Infoblox's successful offering in April to the forthcoming, highly anticipated debut by Palo Alto Networks. Other channel-centric companies believed to be approaching IPO include Ruckus Wireless.

Currently a limited liability company (LLC), Gigamon said it plans to convert into a corporation, Gigamon Inc.

PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2012