The last time Web hosting provider Rackspace filed for an IPO was back in March, 2000, at the peak of the first Internet bubble. Now, it may be about to do so again. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow or Monday, according to one tipster who tells us that email to that effect are circulating inside the company. (Rackspace is a TechCrunch advertiser, but our source is not an employee).
There are no filings yet with the SEC, but press releases touting its revenues have mysteriously been stripped from the company’s site. Here is one that’s been cached, announcing 2006 revenues of $224 million. Various reports put quarterly revenues for 2007 at $75 million, $84 million, and $96 million, respectively for each of the first three quarters, which suggests that full-year 2007 revenues were north of $350 million. Rackspace claims to be profitable, and has more than 15,000 customers. A major outage last November caused by a traffic accident near its Dallas data center was noticed across the Web.
Rumors of an IPO have been swirling recently. The company just hired a new chief financial officer on March 31. Last October, it acquired Webmail.us and it offers cloud computing services that compete with Amazon’s Web Services through its Mosso brand. In January, it shifted strategyto emphasize its utility computing business model.
It is time to pull the trigger.