Shares of Qlik Technologies, Inc., a Radnor business software company, traded for the first time today in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock market. Morgan Stanley and other brokers sold 11.2 million shares at $10 - better than the company's projected $8.50 to $9.50 range - and the stock has fetched up to $13.25, implying the company's value for its 84 million total shares at well above $1 billion.
NEW: "It's an exciting day for us. Very, very exciting," Qlik ceo Lars Bjork told me. Qlik sells a "business intelligence" system, QlikView, which, like SAP AG's Business Objects, Microsoft's Sharepoint and IBM's Cognos, is designed to pull together data about customers from disparate databases to help analysts, salespeople and bosses profile current and potential customers quickly, so they can sell and service them easily, not just from office workstations, but through a free iPhone app and other mobile systems.
"The new decision-makers won't stand in an office behind a screen. They will stand in the streets, and make decisions there," Bjork told me.
Bjork says Qlik's "associative software" differs from rivals because "it enables the user (to be) in control of the software. You are not dependent on your IT department at all times to pre-calculate your reports. You don't need any precalculation. You can start and end anywhere, as long as the data is uploaded in your system. And what you see and experience" in each search "informs your next question."
With 600 people at 25 offices in 15 countries, including nearly 50 at its Radnor-Chester Road headquarters, Qlik has reported higher sales through the recession, as more employees are given iPads and other handheld computer stations and smart phones that can run Qlik (pronounced "click"). "We're like Google and Skype: you never read a manual, you just pick it up, and use it. Qlik's the same, it's easy to expand, easy to implement." There's a demo on the Web site.
Why Radnor? "We are founded in Sweden, and we still have our R&D back there. But we decided to relocate our headquarters to the U.S. It was fairly obvious we couldn't do the West Coast; it's a nine-hour time difference" to Sweden. "We looked at New York as an alternative, Boston, Washington. And we found the Philadelphia area to havea good mix of talent, logistics to Europe, you can easily reach the major airport, and there's a lot of customers that you can get to in the major (Northeast) cities witin two hours."
Does Qlik want to become a big global business software company? "I hope we don't become the next SAP or Oracle," though he's happy to hire some Business Object veterans who may not want to stay at SAP, Bjork told me. "We are successful because we are extremely focused on what we do. We don't divert our interest among 50 businesses. Though you never know, in the future. Now, we are going after a huge market that will expand. The addressable market will expand. We can improve and scale the execution machine by our own efforts, through partners, or in new territories." Or they'll get sold to one of the really big software companies.
EARLIER: Major investors include Accel Partners, Erel Margalit's Jerusalem Venture Partners, and insiders and directors including Ott and Wahl. More about Qlik here.