Four Silicon Valley Firms Raise Over $800 Million in IPOs

​According to data provided by the New York Stock Exchange, four IPOs listed on the Nasdaq or NYSE last week. In total, the firms raised $830.3 million through share sales. All four companies are based in Silicon Valley and were previously backed by venture capitalists.

• Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), a search technology company from Mountain View, California, went public last week, raising $252 million. Elastic’s cloud-based search platform allows firms like Microsoft, Uber, and Barclays to run queries on their company data and records. Elasticsearch was founded as an open source project, but companies can pay Elastic for use of additional features.

• Palo Alto-based Kodiak Sciences (Nasdaq: KOD) debuted on the Nasdaq last week, raising $90 million. Kodiak is a biopharmaceutical company focused on treating chronic and highly prevalent retinal diseases. The company is engineering KSI-301, a therapeutic designed to extend the duration of effective drug levels in ocular tissue.

• Upwork (Nasdaq: UPWK), the freelance networking platform resulting from the Elance and Odesk merger, raised $187 million in its initial offering last week. The company’s platform connects businesses with freelance professionals and other talent to complete special projects. The company’s market capitalization values it over twice its 2014 merger valuation.

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• Guardant Health (Nasdaq: GH), one of two Silicon Valley biotech firms to debut this week, raised $273.1 million in its IPO. Guardant is developing a therapeutic, Guardant360, a liquid biopsy that can detect cancer. While the product can only be used for the detection of late-stage diseases, the company hopes to make it more sensitive for early stage detection.