Anaplan surges in market debut after rocky week for tech stocks

• Anaplan forges ahead with its initial public offering amid downward market pressure on technology companies.
• The software company brought on its chief financial officer just a few weeks ago.

Frank Calderoni, president and chief executive officer of Anaplan Inc., center, rings the opening bell during the company's initial public offering (IPO) on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Friday, Oct. 12, 2018. 

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Software company Anaplan soared in its market debut on Friday, joining a rally in U.S. tech stocks after a rocky week of trading.

Anaplan shares jumped nearly 43 percent to $24.30 by the end of the first day of trading, giving the company a market capitalization of almost $3 billion. Anaplan said Thursday night that it raised $263.5 million in the offering, selling shares at $17 a piece.

CEO Frank Calderoni told CNBC's "Squawk Alley" that the company did not consider delaying the IPO amid the market rout, which sent the Nasdaq to its lowest close since May on Thursday. He said that business remains strong and that the company has almost 1,000 customers, including some companies with tens of thousands of users.

"I was really looking at the future of Anaplan and how that can be positioned," said Calderoni, who replaced Frederic Laluyaux as CEO in early 2017 and was previously chief financial officer at Cisco and Red Hat. In the past two weeks, Calderoni said, things had worked out well for the company.

Anaplan benefited from a broader market rebound on Friday, with the Nasdaq climbing 2.3 percent.

Anaplan joins a crop of emerging software companies that have hit the public markets in 2018, including DocuSign, Dropbox, Elastic and Smartsheet. Market volatility hasn't been of much concern for those companies, as tech stocks have generally trended up throughout the year. But this week's turmoil led some companies to delay their offerings, most notably Tencent Music.

Founded in 2008, Anaplan sells cloud-based software that companies use for business planning. Competitors include IBM, Oracle and SAP.

In addition to leading the company, for a few months Calderoni also served as interim chief financial officer. Last month, Anaplan hired Dave Morton as CFO after a stint at Tesla that lasted just a few weeks.

"He did a great job" answering questions during Anaplan's recent IPO roadshow, Calderoni said regarding Morton. Morton has been a customer of Anaplan for three years, so it was as if Morton had been working at Anaplan for a long time, Calderoni said.