The drought is over.

Clark County laser manufacturer nLight Corp. began trading Thursday morning on the Nasdaq exchange and shares jumped a remarkable 68 percent, $10.95 over the $16 offering price. It's the first initial public offering for a Silicon Forest tech company in almost 14 years.

The debut was a resounding conclusion to the long dry spell for regional tech companies and shows nLight -- a domestic manufacturer little known outside the Portland area -- can appeal to Wall Street investors more commonly enamored of software and cloud computing companies.

NLight is a throwback to an earlier era. It makes its semiconductor lasers in a local factory, at its headquarters just north of Vancouver, drawing on the region's heritage in the chip industry.

The nLight lasers are supplanting traditional cutting, welding and drilling tools in factories around the world. Manufacturers are using the laser technology built in Clark County to make industrial products, consumer electronics and communications gear.

NLight closed at $26.95, implying a market value of approximately $900 million. The IPO raised about $96 million ($89 million after discounts and commissions for underwriters.)

nLight Corp.

Founded

: 2000

Headquarters

: Unincorporated Clark County, just north of Vancouver.

IPO

: Now trading on the Nasdaq exchange as LASR

Business

: Semiconductor lasers for manufacturing industrial, aerospace, defense and electronics products.

Financials

: Sales of $138.5 million in 2017, up 36 percent; profits of $1.8 million, compared to a $14.2 million loss in 2016.

Balance sheet

: $36.7 million in cash, $17.5 million in debt (at the end of 2017.)

Employees

: 1,000 worldwide, including about 400 split between sites in Clark County and Hillsboro.

Funding

: $170 million; nLight's largest backers include venture firms Oak Investment Partners, Menlo Ventures and Mohr, Davidow Ventures, which each hold about 20 percent of the company's stock.

Already among the Portland area's largest tech companies, nLight's revenues grew 36 percent last year to $138.5 million. Its first-quarter revenue was up another 37 percent from a year earlier, suggesting the growth may continue.

It wasn't always that way. The company started in 2000, aiming to make a light source to amplify communications signals in fiber-optic networks. But the telecom industry crashed at the same time the dot-com bubble burst, and so nLight began the long process of retooling its products and adapting them for manufacturing.

"That was more than a pivot. That was a fundamental reset," said Scott Keeney, nLight's co-founder and chief executive. But he said nLight's fundamental technology remained the same, and the time it spent developing products for manufacturers is paying off now.

"It takes years to develop really deep technology," Keeney said.

NLight employs 1,000 around the world - including 400 split between its Clark County headquarters and an office in Hillsboro.

Venture capitalists typically hold investments for seven or eight years, but some of nLight's investors -- which include three well-known Silicon Valley firms -- have been with the company for nearly two decades.

"It says something about (Keeney's) tenacity and it says something about the loyalty of the three venture firms," said Camas investment fund manager David Nierenberg, who holds 87,000 nLight shares.

Other backers have included electronics giant Samsung. Former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who also served as President Obama's secretary of commerce and then as U.S. ambassador to China, sits on nLight's board.

Laser technology is advancing at roughly the same rate that semiconductors did in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, according to nLight - an explosive period that made computers an everyday tool in homes and businesses.

The improvements in lasers make its technology more powerful, adaptable and reliable, according to the company, and stand out in an era dominated by software and cloud computing technologies.

"There haven't been many hardware, deep technologies that have gone public," Keeney said Thursday from the Nasdaq exchange in New York. "There isn't much out there."

It's typical for stocks to rise on the day of the IPO but since the dot-com era the average one-day increase has been around 14 percent -- well below nLight's big jump Thursday. The huge rise suggests nLight may have severely underestimated demand for its stock and could have left money on the table by not seeking more up front.

With the U.S. economy enjoying a long stretch of steady growth, nLight joins several tech companies racing to capitalize on renewed investor enthusiasm for IPOs.

Over the past two weeks, Keeney said he has visited approximately a dozen cities and met with nearly 300 prospective investors to sell them on nLight. He attributed the company's big jump Thursday to investors who took time to evaluate the company's prospects over several years - not just over the next few quarters.

"The good investors are thorough about that longer-term perspective," Keeney said. "Do they want to bet on this technology, this company, in this space? Will it continue to scale?"

Going public isn't always a positive. Scores of companies have leapt into the public markets, eager to cash in on investors' fervor for new technologies, only to wash out when they're not able to deliver the growth Wall Street demands every quarter.

And while none of the region's tech companies has gone public in years, there have been a handful of minor IPOs from non-tech Oregon businesses. They've largely been disappointments.

In nLight's case, though, the Clark County company has been developing its business for nearly two decades. Nierenberg said the IPO will raise the company's profile with potential clients. It's a signal of financial stability and scale, Nierenberg said, and he expects manufacturers will be drawn to a nLight as an alternative to its biggest competitor, a Massachusetts company called IPG Photonics with ties to the Kremlin.

"There are going to be plenty of companies around the world that would very much appreciate having a financially viable alternative source of lasers," Nierenberg said.

Not that there aren't risks for nLight. The company sells 40 percent of its lasers to manufacturers in China, which has threatened tariffs on U.S. manufacturers amid a nascent trade war with President Donald Trump, and nLight posted a narrow profit last year following a $14.2 million loss in 2016.

NLight's IPO comes after an extended down cycle for regional tech companies and a difficult transition from Oregon's roots in computer hardware to a new generation of software and web services companies. Increasingly, the tech industry has consolidated elsewhere.

As Oregon's economy has grown, though, there are unmistakable signs of a rebound in the Silicon Forest. Scores of employers from other regions have opened outposts in the Portland area and just this week, Silicon Valley GPS company Trimble paid $1.2 billion for Viewpoint Construction Software. It was the largest deal ever for a Portland tech company.

It's been decades since the Silicon Forest produced a really large tech business, but University of Oregon economist Tim Duy said that's not necessarily indicative of regional flaws. He notes that the Portland economy is enjoying historic strength, with Oregon's jobless rate at its lowest point on record.

Still, he said, it's a natural outgrowth of that economic strength that more large companies should begin to emerge.

"We'd rather have an environment that could produce there firms than one that didn't," Duy said.

From Keeney's perspective, nLight's success Thursday reflects market optimism that its business will continue to grow. And he said he expects other hot prospects are sure to emerge from the Portland area.

"I want to believe that we can be an example," he said. "I'm definitely committed to helping others follow our path."

-- Mike Rogoway; Twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699