Every month, accountants at big companies spend days matching numbers across spreadsheets so the books can close. BlackLine sold cloud software to automate that grind. Therese Tucker started it in 2001 and was still CEO when it filed, a founder-led company in a part of software usually run by giants such as SAP and Oracle. In October 2016, cloud software IPOs were coming back after a slow year, and BlackLine was one of the first in line.

Therese Tucker's Spreadsheet Problem

Tucker had spent years building accounting software before she founded BlackLine. Her idea was narrow and deep. The month-end close ran on spreadsheets, email and checklists, and mistakes were easy to miss. BlackLine moved account reconciliations, journal entries and task lists into one cloud system that auditors could follow. Silver Lake Sumeru invested before the IPO. At the offering, Tucker and Mario Spanicciati, the chief marketing officer, owned 12.9 percent and 9.0 percent of the company.

Seventeen Dollars in Woodland Hills

BlackLine priced its IPO at $17 a share on October 28, 2016, and listed on Nasdaq under the ticker BL. Its investors sold more shares in follow-on offerings over the next two years. The company also built a close partnership with SAP, which resold BlackLine to its own customers. That gave a small Los Angeles company a sales channel into SAP's large customer base. BlackLine is still public on Nasdaq.

Cover: The Tracks, Chicago, Joseph Pennell. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for dark lines of railroad track (a black line).