Who’s Going Public in the Summer IPO Rush?
The recently frozen IPO market is heating up, and companies are racing to go public before the end of summer
The pandemic almost completely shut down the IPO market this spring, crushing the stock market and marking April and May as the slowest public offering run since 2009. It also dashed the ambitious plans of IPO hopefuls, including DoorDash, Robinhood, and Airbnb.
But as the stock market has surged back, so too has the voracious appetite for public offerings. Many companies are now rushing to go public before the end of summer. On Thursday, two not yet profitable VC-backed companies had big public market debuts: Lemonade, a tech startup specializing in renters and homeowners insurance, and Accolade, an employee benefits software company. Lemonade, which raised $319 million at $29 per share, finished the day up almost 140%, with a market cap of more than $3 billion. Meanwhile, Accolade, which raised $220 million at $22 per share, had an opening day pop of 35%, valuing the company at more than $1 billion.
That’s coming on the heels of business analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet’s $1.7 billion IPO earlier in the week and recent IPOs from grocery chain Albertsons, sales software data provider ZoomInfo, online car dealership Vroom, and record label Warner Music Group. Last month, as many as 39 companies went public, raising $15 billion in capital. Nearly every IPO upsized (increased the number of shares offered) or priced above the middle of its expected range. And IPOs averaged a 38% first-day pop, according to Renaissance Capital, paving the way for more IPOs to come. Here are a few of the companies that could make an IPO run this summer.
Snowflake
The software startup quietly filed for an IPO last month, an offering that could balloon its valuation to $20 billion. Started in 2012, Snowflake’s cloud data warehousing and analytics services have experienced a surge in demand in the past year. In fact, CEO Frank Slootman says the company generated more than $100 million in revenue in 2019, a 174% increase compared to 2018. The company, which is going head-to-head with the likes of more established veterans like Google, Amazon, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, has raised more than…
