SolarEdge Shines Incredibly Bright in Its IPO Debut

In the offering, SolarEdge sold 7 million shares that priced for $18 each, valuing the total offering at $126 million. Despite pricing at $18, shares actually entered the market at $20. The underwriters for the offering were Goldman Sachs, Needham, Canaccord Genuity, Deutsche Bank and Roth Capital Partners.

SolarEdge was founded in 2006 and began commercial shipments in 2010. At the end of February 2015, it had shipped approximately 5.1 million power optimizers and 222,000 inverters. Approximately 100,000 installations, many of which may include multiple inverters, are currently connected to, and monitored through, SolarEdge’s cloud-based monitoring platform.

Since it began commercial shipments in 2010, SolarEdge has shipped approximately 1.3 gigawatts of its DC optimized inverter systems. The company’s products have been installed in solar PV systems in 73 countries. The technology and system architecture are said to be, by the company, protected by 39 awarded patents and 136 patent applications filed worldwide.

SolarEdge primarily sells its products directly to large solar installers and engineering, procurement and construction firms and indirectly to thousands of smaller solar installers. Some of the customers include leading providers of solar PV systems to residential and commercial end users such as SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY), SunRun and Vivint Solar Inc. (NYSE: VSLR). SolarEdge also sells to key solar distributors and electrical equipment wholesalers such as AliusEnergy, Krannich Solar Group, Segen and Soligent Distribution.

Revenue grew to $133.2 million in fiscal 2014 from $79.0 million in fiscal 2013. In the first six months of fiscal 2015, revenue grew to $140.3 million, compared to the first six months of fiscal 2014 at $58.1 million. Gross margin increased to 16.5% in fiscal 2014 from 5.6% in fiscal 2013.

ALSO READ: Tantech: The Unknown IPO That Doubled Out of the Chute!

Although net income and cash flow from operating activity were positive for the six months ended December 2014, SolarEdge has a history of losses and negative cash flow from operating activity, including an accumulated deficit of $135.2 million at the end of December 2014 and incurred net losses of $28.2 million in fiscal 2013 and $21.4 million in fiscal 2014.

SolarEdge shares were up about 20% at $21.53 in the last hour of trading on Thursday. The stock has a range of the day of $19.50 to $22.98. So far on the day, over 5.5 million shares have moved.