The details of Opower’s IPO filing
The details of Opower’s S-1 were made public today.
The major points are that the company is not yet profitable, losing about $14 million off $89 million in revenue last year. The good news is that revenue growth was what you’d like to see, from $29 million in 2011 to $52 million in 2012. Expenses remain high as the company attempts to hit all the major utilities. In fact sales and marketing are the company’s largest expenses right now, clocking in at $30.5 million.
So what’s the story going forward? Well, it comes down to what the total addressable market is, how much of it Opower can tackle, and whether it can sell additional services like behavioral demand response to utilities. There are a lot of unknowns here. We do know that in 2013, the nations’ largest utilities made up 62 percent of Opower’s revenue. The question is how much further reach Opower will have both domestically and abroad.
For now, Opower’s IPO should go off without a hitch. The company has strong management and good revenue growth. I wouldn’t expect explosive stock performance just given the slow sales cycles of utilities, though if it can continue to push that revenue growth figure even harder, then we might have something to talk about.