Ubuntu maker Canonical’s IPO efforts can be traced back quite a long time. Founder Mark Shuttleworth first talked about going public in 2018, though there has been some discussion about IPOs in previous years. But for Canonical, the timing was always not the right one. In a press conference ahead of today’s launch of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Shuttleworth noted that he now expects to go public next year.
“We are going public as planned. now I’m very confident that we’re going to do that in 2023,” said schellworth, who told the outside world on a conference call from an undisclosed island off the coast of west Africa. “so we’re taking proactive steps at board level and in our financial operations — all other parts of the business — in order to be prepared for that.” we are now effectively executing a very clear plan for the next year to make the business float. ”
He stressed that Canonical is not in a situation where it is necessary to raise funds externally, and for him, going public is not about fundraising. He noted that Canonical’s revenue last year was $175 million, and the company’s biggest challenge at the moment is that the demand is greater than the company’s service capabilities, in large part because there is not enough talent in the market for the company to hire.
“My biggest concern as we go through all of this is — as the number of our colleagues increases and transforms into a public company with that sense of responsibility — is to find a balance between maintaining what I think people really like about Ubuntu and Canonical and continuing to reinforce what I think we’re now in the global tech market.” [We’re very committed to the idea that as the business grows, it won’t last in a shallow way, or cause problems for us to grow further—we’re fairly conservative about the way we do.] ”
Chartleworth made the comments at a briefing before the release of Ubuntu’s latest long-term support release. This new version, 22.04 LTS, includes a number of new features, including support for confidential computing on Microsoft Azure, optimized mirroring for AWS’s Arm-based Graviton machines, and desktop support for the Raspberry Pi 4, and much more.