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Confluent Is Seeking Private Funding at $5 Billion Value

Confluent Is Seeking Private Funding at $5 Billion Value

(Bloomberg) -- The event streaming platform Confluent Inc. has held talks with potential investors about a new funding round, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Confluent is seeking to raise about $200 million to $300 million, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The round could value Confluent at about $5 billion, another person said.

The company raised $125 million in a series D fundraising in early 2019. That round valued the company at $2.5 billion.

Confluent, based in Mountain View, California, is tapping the private market ahead of a possible initial public offering, the people said.

IPOs of software companies have fared well in the past year. Globally, shares of those companies have gained 58% overall based on a weighted average from their offer prices, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with an increase of 20% for all IPOs.

Confluent’s annual recurring revenue is growing at a rate of almost 100% a year, it said in a statement. It counts Royal Bank of Canada, Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and TiVo Corp. among customers, its website shows.

Representatives for Confluent didn’t respond to requests for comment on the fundraising details.

Confluent was started by the early developers of streaming processing software Apache Kafka. Its backers include Benchmark, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

To contact the reporters on this story: Crystal Tse in New York at ctse44@bloomberg.net;Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Liana Baker at lbaker75@bloomberg.net, ;Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Fournier, Michael Hytha

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