Tableau Software: Big Data IPO Goes out Above Expected Range, Shares Spike Higher

Seattle-based software maker Tableau Software Inc. (NYSE: DATA) begins trading today following an initial public offering (IPO) of 8.2 million shares at a price of $31 a share. The offering is valued at around $254 million.

Lead underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

The company yesterday boosted the number of shares on offer by 1.15 million, including the underwriters’ overallotment of 150,000 shares. The original filing called for the sale of 7.2 million shares, not including the underwriters’ option on an additional 1.08 million shares. The expected price range had been $28 to $30 a share, but strong demand led to the larger volume and higher price.

Tableau offers a cloud-based data analytics product that allows users to display and query large data sets using a visual query language and a graphical interface. “Big data,” as it is called, has become a very hot corner of the tech sector, and Tableau’s IPO could not have been timed better. The company lists among its customers Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE), E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (NYSE: DD), the Federal Aviation Administration and Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD).

The company’s revenues have grown from $34.2 million in 2010 to $127.7 million last year. In the first three months of 2013, Tableau posted revenues of $40 million.

If Yahoo! Finance and The Wall Street Journal are to be believed, Tableau’s shares opened at $44 this morning and have risen to nearly $50 in the first hour of trading. Can the underwriters have left this much money on the table?