October 2, 2016
Tanium, a US security start-up last valued at $3.5bn, is set to start working on a flotation on the US stock market in the next six months, despite the volatility of the market in public cyber security companies.
The Californian company counts among its customers eight of the top 10 global banks, retail giants such as Walmart and Home Depot and the US, UK and Australian governments, including their intelligence agencies.
“This is a company we will take public in the next 18 months,” said Orion Hindawi, Tanium chief executive, in a Financial Times interview.
“We have another six months until we start the formal process of filing … we have a pretty good beat on which bank we want to work with.”
Tanium is the largest private company of a new generation of cyber security companies that emerged after antivirus software failed to cope with more sophisticated attacks.
The business, based in the Bay Area and co-founded by Mr Hindawi and his father David, sells cyber security software that helps IT departments monitor hundreds of thousands of computers for any vulnerabilities in seconds.
But security companies have suffered on the public markets with Nasdaq-quoted Secureworks, one of the only technology companies to list this year, raising less than expected in its initial public offering in June and falling 11 per cent since its first day of trading.
Shares in FireEye, once the golden child of next generation security companies, has fallen 54 per cent in the past year. Palo Alto Networks has lost 7.4 per cent, while Fortinet is down 13 per cent.