JFrog sold software that most people never see, and its stock jumped 47 percent on day one. Programmers write code, but companies ship compiled packages, containers, and libraries. Those files have to live somewhere safe before they reach servers and phones. JFrog's Artifactory became that warehouse for thousands of companies. The Israeli company went public in September 2020, as the pandemic pushed every business to ship software faster.

Artifactory Before DevOps

Shlomi Ben Haim, Yoav Landman, and Fred Simon founded JFrog in Israel in 2008. Landman had built Artifactory as an open-source tool for storing Java build files. The founders turned it into a business that handled every kind of package. They sold it to developers first and let usage spread inside companies. JFrog later added tools for scanning packages for security flaws and pushing updates to devices. The bet was that every company would turn into a software company and need a place for its builds.

Forty-Four Dollars, Then More

JFrog priced its IPO at $44 a share in September 2020, above its expected range, and listed on Nasdaq under the ticker FROG. The stock closed its first day at $64.79, up 47 percent, valuing the company at more than $5.7 billion. JFrog kept selling to large companies and moving customers to its cloud service. It still trades on Nasdaq as FROG.

Cover: A Toad in the Path: Early Spring in Norfolk, Peter Henry Emerson. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a toad in the path (the frog).