Apache files S-1

Apache Design Solutions today filed their S-1 with the SEC in preparation for its initial public offering (IPO). This is a big deal since there hasn’t been an IPO of an EDA company for may years (Magma was the last 10 years ago). As a private company they have not had to reveal their financials until now.

It turns out that they did $44M in revenue last year (2010), $34M the year before (2009) and $25M two years ago (2008). That’s pretty impressive growth. They were profitable in all 3 years. Apache has done a good job of building up multiple product lines each of which is strong in its space. It is almost impossible to get to IPO levels of revenue and growth with a single product line unless it is in one of the huge market spaces such as synthesis or place & route.

Of course there is a large amount of uncertainty in the market due to the situation in Japan, Libya and maybe the Euro. None of that has anything to do with Apache directly but Wall Street is an emotional place and the general market can make a big impact on the success of an IPO. Few people remember that SDA was going to go public on what turned out to be the day of the 1987 stock-market crash. Oops. They never went public, and ended up merging with (already public) ECAD systems to create Cadence.

If Apache’s IPO is a big success, then a couple of other companies are rumored to be thinking about IPOs. Atrenta and eSilicon. They are both private so I’ve not seen the numbers for either of them, but the numbers I’ve heard make them sound ready for the costs of Sarbanes-Oxley and all the other annoyance that come with being a public company.