“Every company has two markets: one for its goods and one for
itself, one for its customers and the other for its investors.
Linuxcare, Inc. appears to be doing very well at both. While the
Linux service company has announced a $32.5 million second round of
funding from investors, the more significant number is the size of
the investment community’s interest in the fast-growing company.
According to Fernand Serrat, President and CEO of Linuxcare, “We
had a total of over 300 million dollars offered to us.”
“It was an interesting thing,” he continued, “because the
process of pricing went something like ‘X amount is what was
suggested. And I said ‘no way, no how. I want to talk to a couple
of banks.’ And we ended up doing four times that X amount that was
suggested. And then we find ourselves still with $300 million.
Obviously we were still underpriced. So we are not even catching up
with the speed at which the market is viewing our progress.”
“That’s the financial market, of course. The services
market–where Serrat calls his company “the only pure play”–is
doing a good job of providing that progress. The company has
quickly built a who’s who list of Fortune 500 customers.“