Samsara IPO Seeks $11.5 Billion Valuation

Samsara, an internet of things company, set terms for its initial public offering Monday.

Samsara said it plans to offer 35 million shares at $20 to $23 each, according to a Dec. 6 prospectus.It will trade under the ticker IOT on the New York Stock Exchange. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Allen & Co. are lead underwriters on the deal.

At $23, Samsara’s valuation could hit $11.5 billion. This is more than double the $5.4 billion valuation that Reuters reported for the company during its last funding round in 2020. Samsara is scheduled to price its deal on Tuesday, Dec. 14 and trade the next day, a person familiar with the situation said.

The Samsara offering comes as the IPO market slows down ahead of the Christmas holiday. Roughly a handful of new issues are expected this week, including IPOs from Nubank,the Brazilian digital lender that is targeting a nearly $41.5 billion valuation, and HashiCorp, a cloud software provider that is seeking a $13 billion market capitalization.

Founded in 2015 by CEO Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket, chief technology officer, Samsara provides a connected operations cloud and sensors that are used by companies to manage their vehicle fleets and industrial operations. (Biswas and Bicket previously founded cloud infrastructure startup Meraki which they sold to Cisco in 2012.)

Samsara’s technology collects data including video footage, people and motion detection, GPS location, and energy consumption. Companies can use this information to improve safety, lower insurance costs and reduce the need for manual oversight and judgment, the prospectus said.

It has over 13,000 core customers, which it defines as entities with annual recurring revenues of greater than $5,000, including small businesses, state and local governments, and large, global enterprises.

The City of Boston uses Samasara’s technology to manage its fleet of electric vehicles(EVs) and snowplows. Other clients include Windy City Limousine, the City of Fort Lauderdale and Delta Constructors,the company website said.

Samsara is not profitable. Losses narrowed to $102.3 million for the nine months ended Oct. 30 compared with $174 million in losses for the same time period in 2020. Revenue rose 74%, to $302.6 million for the Oct. 30 period.

Biswas will have 25% of total voting power after the IPO, while Bicket, who is also executive vice president, will have 24.3%, the prospectus said. Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm that invests in tech startups, will hold nearly 18%.