CommVault Swims in Public Pool

Another day, another storage IPO.

Data protection software vendor CommVault today priced its shares at $14.50 -- marking the second straight day a storage company went public by hitting the high end or better of its IPO target range. CommVault projected a price of $12.50 to $14.50 three weeks ago. (See CommVault's One Step Closer.)

CommVault raised $161 million, selling 11.11 million shares at the $14.50 IPO price. WAFS vendor Riverbed Thursday beat its forecast with a $9.75 IPO price, raising $86 million. (See Riverbed Comes Out at $9.75.) Shares of both companies rose sharply today. CommVault's shares rose 17.24 percent to close at $17 and Riverbed increased 9.48 percent to $16.75.

Replication vendor Double-Take and NAS vendor Isilon have filed with the SEC for IPOs, and a bunch of other storage startups are considering going public next year. (See Isilon Reveals IPO Plans and Double-Take Seeks IPO.)

CommVault has long been considered the best IPO prospect among private storage firms. CommVault -- unlike Riverbed, Double-Take, and Isilon -- has been profitable and it has the most revenue of the group. CommVault made $5.1 million on $109.5 million of revenue for its fiscal year that ended last March, and earned $1.9 million on $33.5 million in revenue last quarter.