The C3.ai company’s impending IPO is set to supercharge the artificial intelligence market.
Reuters reports today that the company has raised its IPO horizon by a considerable margin – while the company was previously preparing for 15.5 million shares at $31-$34 per share, revised share outlook is $36-$38 each.
This planning takes place at a time where venture capital firms are talking about big demand for technology IPOs and companies like Palantir, DoorDash, and AirBnB are pondering their own IPO valuations.
C3.ai will take the plunge with banking help from Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America securities.
While C3.ai bills itself as a vendor of enterprise technology, two of its most prominent clients are the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense.
However, C3.ai spokespersons contend that its services will be ultimately practically useful in enterprise, as promoted on the company’s web site:
“The C3 AI™ Suite with its unique model-driven architecture fully addresses the requirements for the digital transformation software stack, providing a low-code/no-code AI and IoT platform that accelerates software development by a factor of 26 or more, reduces cost and risk, and delivers future-proof applications.”
This work, company leaders maintain, requires a “new technology stack,” and by implication, a new type of full-stack provider: C3.ai wants to be that provider. Here’s how the company makes its case, based on the benefit of past sea changes in technology:
“The software industry has transitioned from custom applications based on mainframe standards such as MVS, VSAM, and ISAM, to applications developed on a relational database foundation, to enterprise application software, to SaaS and mobile apps, and now to the AI-enabled enterprise. The internet and the iPhone changed everything. Each of these transitions represented a replacement market for its predecessor. Each delivered dramatic benefits in productivity. Each offered organizations the opportunity to gain sustainable competitive advantage.”
Companies that ignored these changes, C3.ai notes, “ceased to be competitive.”
How much will a new AI approach to business help companies to make the changes that they need to achieve from 2020 to, say, 2030? Stay tuned.
