FL -- CTRA:
I'm accumulating this one, even though the IPO only went off yesterday. Normally, I'd wait awhile to let things shake out a bit; but I think this company has a formidable story that has been overlooked in the buzz over other stocks.
The underwriters are Robertson Stephens, Chase Hambrecht & Quist, and Dain Rauscher Wessels -- all blue-chip outfits.
The lineup of venture capitalists is strong: Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co (13.2 percent); North Bridge Venture Partners (11.1 percent); Scripps Ventures (7.7 percent); Goldman Sachs (6.5 percent); HarbourVest Partners (6.5 percent); Commonwealth Capital Ventures (6.4 percent); Polaris Venture Management (5.4 percent). The downside is that they're all East Coast VCs -- no Silicon Valley boutiques.
The company has a deep and very important partnership with MSFT. Its collaboration package is integrated with the MS Back Office suite and with MS Digital Dashboard.
CTRA has a first-rate customer list, including: Ariba, Baan, i2, Oracle, Compaq, Data General, Hitachi, Ascend, Nortel Networks, Novell, AT&T, MCI Worldcom, Viacom, Nationwide Insurance, Federated, Kraft, Sony, DuPont, Merck, Shering Plough, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and the U.S. Army. These are from the Prospectus. A recent PR also named these new customers: Dominos Pizza, Marsh USA, Warner Lambert, Level 3, Ascolta, the Chicago Tribune, Guy Carpenter & Company, PSINet, Omni Logic, Allegiance Telecom, Computer Curriculum Corporation, Manulife, Renaissance, PMC Sierra, ADP, Avid Sports, Ameritech Cellular, Exabyte, Outlook Software, UNC Charlotte, North Carolina AT&T, and the University of Alberta.
Top-line growth has been impressive: $234,000 in FY1997, $4.226 million in FY1998, and $8.595 million in FY1999.
CTRA's core technology includes voice-over IP, which can obviously be leveraged in many directions, of the company chooses to invest in additional markets.
References for DD:
IPO Prospectus:
freeedgar.com
Centra PRs:
centra.com |
