Virtual enterprise phone system provider RingCentral has been mentioned frequently in the last few months as a candidate to become a publicly traded company, and now that has come to pass.
The 10-year-old, San Mateo, Calif.-based company on Sept. 26 revealed the pricing of its initial public offering of 7.5 million shares of its common stock, including 7.42 million from the company and 80,000 shares from selling stockholders, at a price to the public of $13 per share.
The shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 27 under the symbol “RNG.” Three hours into the trading day, the stock had risen 42 percent to $18.53.
Goldman, Sachs & Co., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and BofA Merrill Lynch acted as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering, and Allen & Company LLC and Raymond James acted as co-managers.
RingCentral uses the cloud to offer a Web-based phone system for SMBs as an alternative to traditional phone carriers such as AT&T and newcomers such as Google Voice or Ifbyphone.
The company’s frontline product, RingCentral Office, costs $99.99 per month for up to four users and includes several of the bells and whistles business users have come to associate with traditional phone and fax services.
RingCentral has been successful marketing its less-expensive VOIP (voice over IP) phone platform, which offers preconfigured Linksys IP business phones for workers in small and midsize businesses. RingCentral Office directs enterprises’ phone calls through a multitude of devices to reach employees remotely or at their desks.
The company also said it has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 1,125,000 additional shares of common stock.
Keith Nealon, president and general manager of the cloud division at ShoreTel, said in an email to eWEEK that “the Ring Central IPO is another indication that the demand for cloud-based business phone systems continues to accelerate.
“The options for customers are expanding and they have a choice of a broad range of features, service levels and prices available across VoIP service providers. As clients continue to be more comfortable with cloud-based business applications of all types, the market for VoIP will only get bigger.”
eWEEK Senior Editor Jeff Burt contributed to this story.