Cloud company Datadog hires banks for IPO

Datadog Inc, the cloud monitoring company whose investors include a wealth manager for Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, has hired investment banks for its initial public offering (IPO), according to people familiar with the matter, reports Reuters.

New York-based Datadog has hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Credit Suisse Group AG as the lead underwriting banks for the IPO which could come later this year, the sources said.

The IPO could assign Datadog a valuation of several billion of dollars, the sources said. This would eclipse Datadog's prior public valuation of $640 million in 2015, according to data provider PitchBook.

The sources requested anonymity to discuss the confidential arrangements and cautioned that the IPO plans are subject to market conditions. Datadog, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse declined to comment. Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The IPO would be the latest in a string of listings in 2019 by so-called software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, such as Zoom Video Communications and Slack Technologies. Such listings have performed well since going public as they benefit from the expansion of cloud computing.

Datadog provides a service for companies to monitor the health of their cloud-based applications. Its customers include Twitter Inc, The Washington Post and Amazon-owned Whole Foods, according to Datadog's website.

ICONIQ Capital, a family office for technology scions such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, led a $94.5 million Series D venture funding round in Datadog in late-2015, according to PitchBook.