Inktomi Doubles in Price on Day of IPO

Internet search and software company Inktomi Corp. made a stunning debut on Wall Street, doubling its initial public offering price. The San Mateo-based company, whose technology powers many of the leading Internet directories, went public on the Nasdaq market at $18 a share and finished the day at $36. Inktomi offered 2.2 million shares through an underwriting team led by Goldman Sachs. Founded two years ago by a computer science professor and a graduate student at UC Berkeley, the company quickly gained the respect of industry insiders. Increasingly, Inktomi’s Internet search software is being recognized for its ability to crawl over large volumes of documents and deliver the comprehensive search results on the World Wide Web.