Starent nets $126.4M in IPO

Starent Networks Corp., which sells multimedia infrastructure products to wireless carriers, raised $126.4 million in an initial public offering, beating the company’s forecast. The offering of more than 10.5 million shares sold for $12 per share, which gives the company an initial market capitalization of $749 million.
The company’s stock was up more than 15% to $13.86 in its second day of trading.
The IPO included 9 million company shares and more than 1.5 million shares from selling stockholders, according to the company.
The Tewksbury, Mass.-based company plans to use net proceeds from the IPO to increase capital and consider additional expenses that could include company, product or technologies acquisitions.
Starent counts a number of high-profile carriers as customers, including Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular Corp., China Unicom and Virgin Mobile.
Starent is one of a number of wireless companies to hold initial public offerings. Clearwire Corp. and Glu Mobile Inc. have recently taken the public-company plunge, and MetroPCS Communications Inc. and Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. are both planning IPOs.