BOULDER — Rally Software Development Corp., a Boulder-based software development company, has registered with the SEC to go public in what looks to be a $70 million offering.

Rally has yet to announce the number of shares to be sold, set a price range or announced a date for the sale, according to the filing and a March 11 press release from the company. Rally’s S-1 registration statement did say the company would be traded on the New York Stock Exchange as “RALY.”

The $70 million figure is a placeholder value used in the filing and also is subject to change.

Rally makes cloud-based software tools developers use to manage projects using agile development techniques. It has been one of the fastest growing companies in Colorado, with a current headcount around 380 employees companywide.

Money raised from the IPO will be used to increase Rally’s financial flexibility, marketing and sales efforts, invest in its data centers and international reach and possibly acquire other companies, the prospectus said.

Representatives of Rally cannot comment on the IPO because of SEC regulations governing the quiet period companies enter before and after going public. But an IPO for Rally has been in the works for a while, chief executive and chairman Tim Miller has said in the past couple years.

During a 2011 CEO Roundtable hosted by the Boulder County Business Report, Miller said Rally already had been trying to find an optimal time for an IPO. Instead of going public, the company decided to raise $20 million from venture capitalists in a Series E round, Miller said.

While executives must be quiet, Rally’s prospectus is full of information about Rally’s financial situation and operations that previously were unavailable to the public.

Rally’s revenues have increased dramatically in the past two years, according to financial data included in the filing. In Rally’s 2012 fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, the company reported revenue of $41.3 million, up 39 percent from the $29.7 million it reported for its 2011 fiscal year, and 124 percent from the $18.4 million it reported in its 2010 fiscal year.

Rally did report a net loss of $11.6 million in its 2012 fiscal year, up from $9.9 million the year before.

Rally’s growth has been driven by the increasing number of developers being “agile” when developing software. Among other things, agile techniques are intended to enable developers to collaborate and take a flexible approach when creating software, and the method is reputed to result in software that is delivered to clients faster, cheaper and better.

According to a report from The Standish Group that Rally cites, developers used agile techniques in about 29 percent of new software-development projects in 2011.

Rally’s prospective said it had 154,982 paid users and more than 1,000 customers as of Oct. 31, including 36 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Those users use Rally’s cloud-based platform which provides planning, scheduling, resource management and progress reporting tools.

Rally, its executives and investors have deep roots in Boulder. Rally’s chief technology officer, Ryan Martens, founded the company in Boulder in 2001 as F4 Technologies Inc. Martens earlier had co-founded software company Avitek Inc. in Boulder. Miller served as CEO of that company until it was purchased by BEA Systems Inc. in 1999.

Jim Lejeal, currently Rally’s chief financial officer, was an early angel investor. He was a co-founder of Raindance Communications Inc., a company based in Louisville that went public in 2000 and was acquired by West Corp. in 2006.

Boulder-based investors include Boulder Ventures and Mobius Venture Capital, the former VC firm of Foundry Group’s managing directors.

Meritech Capital Partners, a Palo Alto, California-based VC firm, led the 2011 Series E round with a $10 million investment, according to the SEC filing. Greylock Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures also invested.

Rally has raised about $70 million from VCs, according to the prospectus. -- CHECK

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Piper Jaffray & Co. will act as lead book-running managers for the offering, according to the release. Needham & Company, LLC, JMP Securities LLC and William Blair & Company, L.L.C. will act as co-managers.