Shares of Niku soared $48.5, jumping more than 200 percent, to $72.5 in early afternoon trading. The company opened at $64 around 8:30 a.m. PST.
The company offered 8 million shares at $24 per share, above its original target range of $20 to $22. Niku, along with making software, manages Internet portals that help companies manage human resources, billing and other professional services.
Niku, which filed to go public last December, competes in a young market against Opus 360, eLance, Guru.com and Monster Board.
The market for packaged supply-chain software is expected to grow from approximately $600 million last year to $12 billion by 2003, according to market research firm International Data Corp.
Last month, the company acquired Legal Anywhere, which provides Web services to law firms and legal departments, in a deal valued at $10 million. Niku said it expects the acquisition to help expand its business within the legal field.
The company, based in Redwood City, Calif., is led by Farzad Dibachi, a former Oracle senior vice president who left the database software maker in 1995 to start Diba, a designer of much-hyped Internet appliances that was later folded into Sun Microsystems.
Niku has sealed a few key clients that make up a large portion of its revenue base. Sybase accounted for approximately 22 percent of the firm’s revenue base of $2.9 million for the nine months ended October 31. USinternetworking accounted for 18 percent while SalesLogix accounted for approximately 10 percent, the company said.
Goldman Sachs is managing the offering, which will be co-managed by Dain Rauscher Wessels, Thomas Weisel Partners and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.
The company is trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "NIKU."
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