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Tableau’s stock started with a bang. Click on image for real-time pricing.

Tableau Software is starting on the New York Stock Exchange today with a bang.

After pricing its initial public offering Thursday night at $31, the stock took off in early-morning trading. Shares jumped more than 50 percent, with the stock now trading at more than $47 per share.

Tableau, a Seattle-based maker of data visualization products, couldn’t have picked a better time to go public. The mood on Wall Street is positive, and there’s a hunger for fast-growing technology companies in the enterprise arena.

Christian Chabot (l) and Pat Hanrahan of Tableau Software
Christian Chabot (l) and Pat Hanrahan of Tableau Software

Tableau sold 8.2 million shares at $31, meaning the offering was worth about $254 million before expenses and other fees.

As we previously noted, Tableau is a bit of rarity since its three founders were able to retain 48 percent of the company at the time of the IPO. At current trading levels, that means the 15 percent stakes of CEO Christian Chabot and Chief Development Officer Chris Stolte are worth more than $365 million. Chief Scientist Patrick Hanrahan, who holds 18 percent of the company, is worth more than $435 million. The three founders also sold 400,000 shares each at the $31 offering price.

Tableau spun out of Stanford University, but it relocated to Seattle shortly after it was founded ten years ago. The company, which employed 749 people at the end of last year, posted revenues of $127.7 million last year. It was showed profits of $1.4 million in 2012, though it slipped to a $4 million net loss during the first quarter.

We’ll be tracking the progress of the IPO throughout the day, and plan to interview Chabot later this morning.

Follow-upQ&A with Tableau CEO Christian Chabot: ‘We’ve been working our whole lives to become an overnight success’

Here’s more from my chat with Chabot at the GeekWire Meetup in February in which he discussed the roots of Tableau and offered some advice to entrepreneurs.

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