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RightNow Technologies of Bozeman files to go public

May 11, 2004 /

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RightNow Technologies announced Monday it has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

This means the Bozeman-based software business has taken the first step toward becoming a public company.

By KAYLEY MENDENHALL, Chronicle Staff Writer

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/05/11/news/002rightnowbzbigs.txt

Because of SEC regulations, Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder of RightNow, said he could not comment on the filing or the public offering.

But, he said, the company is doing well.

"We’ve been fortunate," he said. "The quarter that ended the end of March was our 25th consecutive quarter of revenue growth."

RightNow — which makes customer-service software for companies that do business on the Web — was also profitable for the first time in the first quarter of 2004.

"We hired 110 people last year," Gianforte said. "We continue to hire across the organization."

RightNow has a total of 320 employees and about two-thirds of those people are located in Bozeman.

Gianforte also could not comment on the timing of his decision to start the IPO process. But Sheryl Kingstone, an industry analyst with the Yankee Group based in Toronto, said there is a lot of hype going on now in IPO markets.

"Google is going public and it’s almost like tech is back," Kingstone said. "The jury is still out on whether it’s a good time right now. We haven’t had a lot of tech stocks go public just yet that have been huge successes."

But, she said, investors are starting to take notice of companies like RightNow that create enterprise software. And businesses are starting to shift their investment dollars toward the type of computer services RightNow provides.

"Fifty-one percent of enterprises will increase spending by 19 percent on (customer service) technologies over the next one to two years," Kingstone said.

Now that RightNow has filed its registration with the SEC, it could be another six months before the process of going public is complete, she said. And just because the company filed, doesn’t necessarily mean it has to go public.

"There’s been a lot of companies that have tried, submitted and then changed their mind," she said. "I don’t see them going down that path."