Nitro Software makes ASX debut, positions itself as main rival to Adobe
A market research study found that Nitro’s global serviceable PDF and eSignature market was worth around $46 billion.
Adobe rival Nitro Software has its sights set on an official ASX listing today, after closing a $110 million initial public offering on Friday.
The US-based firm set out to raise $65.8 million through the issue of 38.2 million shares at $1.72 each, giving new investors a total holding of approximately 33.9%.
As part of the offer, existing shareholders also sought to offload 25.8 million shares at the same price, giving them a 66.1% slice at completion of the offer.
Funds raised will provide capital and financial flexibility to support Nitro’s growth strategy and repay existing debts.
The company plans to trade under the ASX ticker ‘NTO’.
PDF productivity
Founded in Melbourne 14 years ago, Nitro has grown to become a global document productivity software developer focused on driving digital transformation across industries.
The company’s core solution – the Nitro Productivity Suite – provides integrated portable document format (PDF) productivity and electronic signature (eSigning) tools to customers through a horizontal, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and desktop-based software solution.
SaaS has become a common delivery model across many industries and removes the need for organisations to install, maintain and upgrade software and hardware systems.
Nitro Productivity features a Microsoft Office-style interface which allows users to create, combine, review, convert, edit, sign, redact, protect and compare documents using the PDF standard.
It can also make scanned documents into searchable and editable PDFs and integrate them into cloud-based storage products such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.
Today, Nitro has over 1.8 million licenced users worldwide and serves over 10,400 business customers across 144 countries.
The company’s growth strategy is based on expanding current client relationships through increased licences and prices paid per licence; winning new customers; expanding revenue contributions from larger business customers; continued investment in product development; and acquisitions.
Revenue opportunity
According to a market research study commissioned by Nitro, there is a $5.5 billion revenue opportunity “attributable to the portion of Nitro’s serviceable available market which it may be able to realistically serve”.
This market is expected to grow at a rate of 10.6% per annum over the next four years and includes potential users worldwide who are ready to implement, expand or maintain their current software solutions.
“The market is relatively evenly split across industry verticals, [with] approximately 33% of Nitro’s serviceable available market across the US and Western Europe,” the study said.
“Approximately 46% of the market is from East Asia and South East Asia which are relatively unpenetrated markets for Nitro, given that Nitro has not traditionally invested in sales and marketing resources across these jurisdictions.”
The study estimated Nitro’s total global serviceable available market across the PDF productivity and eSignature niche to be around $46 billion.