SAP was webMethods' biggest customer, paying for about 31 percent of its revenue in the nine months before its IPO. The Fairfax, Virginia startup made software that let companies swap information and transactions with suppliers and partners in real time over the internet. It had grown from 17 employees in March 1998 to 197 by the end of 1999. In February 2000, at the height of the business-to-business boom, it sold shares at $35.

Seventeen People and SAP

webMethods was founded in June 1996. From then through March 1997, its revenue was $12,000. It shipped its main product, webMethods B2B, in June 1998. The bet was that every big company would need to connect its software to everyone it bought from and sold to. SAP licensed the technology and became a major customer. Dell and Eastman Chemical bought shares in a private sale that closed alongside the IPO.

From the Bubble to Software AG

webMethods priced its IPO at $35 a share in February 2000 and listed on Nasdaq as WEBM. It sold 4.1 million shares, raising $143.5 million before fees. Weeks later the dot-com market began to fall. webMethods kept selling integration software from Fairfax for seven more years. In 2007 Software AG of Germany bought it through a tender offer at $9.15 a share in cash, and the stock left Nasdaq that June.

Cover: Spider, Odilon Redon. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a spider (the web).