Violin Memory tunes up for $172.5 million IPO

Violin Memory, led by CEO Don Basile has filed to raise up to $172.5 million in an initial public offering.

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Cromwell Schubarth: Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal; Email | Twitter | Google+

Violin Memory filed for its long-awaited initial public offering on Monday, saying it plans to raise up to $172.5 million.
The Mountain View-based maker of data storage systems led by CEO Donald Basile plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol of VNEM.
The company's IPO has been expected for several years now and reports of its recent valuations have run from as low as $800 million to as high as $2 billion.
Plans to go public last year were apparently shelved due to the sudden end of a resale agreement with Hewlett-Packard. The IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that HP provided 65 percent of Violin's revenue in fiscal 2012 but only 10 percent in the first six months of this year.
Nonetheless, revenue in the first six months of this year is up almost 70 percent to $51.3 million. Violin's revenue soared more than sixfold in the past three fiscal years, going from $11.4 million in 2011 to $73.8 million in fiscal 2013.
The company posted a net loss of $109 million in fiscal 2013 and a net loss of $59.1 million in the first half of this year.
The company has raised about $270 million in venture capital since it was founded in 2005.
Its biggest shareholder is Toshiba Corp., which owns about 14 percent of Violin's outstanding shares. The Japanese electronics giant is also the company's sole supplier of the flash memory used in its storage arrays.
Other backers include GE Capital, SAP Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Juniper Networks, Toshiba Corp. and Windcrest Partners.
Click here to read the SEC filing about Violin Memory's IPO plans.