2020 IPO report card: Are tech’s newest public companies meeting expectations?
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Image Credits: Nigel Sussman
As the American election looms and the IPO cycle slows some, it’s a good time to review how well the public offerings we have seen thus far have performed.
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Welcome to a Monday morning data rundown discussing how well the latest-stage startups that went public this year have performed after their first day. We’ll be awarding letter grades for post-IPO performance as well, because we can.
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Ranking 2020’s IPOs
The fine folks at my former publication Crunchbase News have a running list of 2020 IPOs, which will help us not miss any names. Of course, we’re not going to include every possible deal; there have been some marginal debuts that we can leave behind.
But, the majors matter. So let’s get into them now:
- Snowflake: It priced above its raised range. Then it went up sharply. From an IPO price of $120 per share, Snowflake is worth $250 per share today. That’s so expensive, compared to the data-focused Snowflake’s revenue, that I can hardly figure out what the hell its price means. The company’s valuation got so rich that we wrote that all tech companies should go public to take advantage of the rich market. This year’s standout IPO. A+.
- Unity: Unity’s IPO was a source of wonder for those curious about the economics of the gaming world. For us finance dorks, it was also a right corker. We were impressed. So were investors. After setting a $34 and $42 per share IPO range, Unity raised it to $44 and $48 per share. Then it went public at $52 per share. Today it’s worth $94.50 per share, or around $25 billion. It was priced at $6 billion, give or take, in its final private round. A huge win of an IPO. A.
- Vroom: Ah, Vroom. Showing that you can sell cars at cost and still go public while being valued like a tech company. Vroom was worth around $1.5 billion in its last private round and $2.5 billion at its IPO price of $22. Today? $49.73 per share. In its most recent quarter Vroom managed to generate just $7.6 million in gross margin off revenue of $253.1 million. That’s (expletive deleted) hilarious! A- for managing to be worth $5.9 billion while being barely gross margin positive.
- nCino: Built atop the Salesforce platform, nCino priced its IPO above its IPO range at $31 per share. Then it exploded out of the gate, opening up around 150%. Of course, nCino was a SaaS business going public when those were incredibly hot, so perhaps its outsize performance was something to expect. Regardless, today the company is worth more than $80 per share, which is a win. A-.
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- Lemonade: The Lemonade IPO is still one of my personal favorites from the year. Not because it forced me to learn a bunch of new things about insurance, but because it felt like the nascent company was valued like a more mature operation. Initially, Lemonade’s IPO looked like a let down, as it targeted a $1.3 billion to $1.47 billion valuation range, lower than its final private price of $2 billion (post-money). But then its IPO valuation rose to $1.47 billion to $1.58 billion. Better! And then it shot out the gate like a hare, blasting past the $60 per share mark, more than double its final $29 per-share IPO price. Today it’s still worth north of $65 per share. How is that not a win for a company that, like, Vroom generates very modest gross profit? A-.
- JFrog: Developers! Developers! Developers! That’s what investors chanted as JFrog raised its IPO price range, priced at $44 per share, and then shot higher. Worth $75 per share today, JFrog is valued at around $6.6 billion. That’s much better than its last private valuation of $1 billion. A-.
- BigCommerce: In a year when Shopify went up like a lost balloon, perhaps the BigCommerce debut was always going to be an event. After Shopify had a huge quarter, BigCommerce raised its IPO range to $21 to $23 per share, from $18 to $20 per share. It priced at $24 per share, “the company opened at $68 per share today, currently trading for $82 per share” we wrote on its first day of trading. Given the company’s modest growth profile, we were perplexed by its high valuation. That means it was a win. A-.
- Palantir: Another of this year’s direct listings, Palantir is worth $10 per share this morning. From a reference price of $7.25, that’s really good. Compared to where its stock was trading pre-IPO, it’s a surprisingly strong result. How did Palantir pull off the debut when its governance was such massive garbage? It forecasted strong revenue growth. That helped. B+.
- ZoomInfo: This June we were treated to the ZoomInfo debut, the listing of a company that had been traded around while private. The data-focused company priced at $21 per share and is worth nearly $43 as I write to you. That’s one hell of a return. B+.
- One Medical: Priced at $14 per share, worth around $1.7 billion. It opened sharply higher, and is worth just over $30 today. One Medical was worth around $1.5 billion while private. Today the concierge medical provider is worth $3.84 billion. Sure, it could have priced higher, but this IPO was a win. B+.
- Kingsoft Cloud: Remember this one? Priced at $17 per share, the China-based cloud company was worth $3.7 billion when it went public. After going public, Kingsoft lost much of its IPO pop. Today, however, the firm is worth more than $31 per share, valuing it at around $6.7 billion. Not bad. B+.
- Jamf: Everyone’s favorite Apple-device management company had a good IPO. After raising its IPO range to $21 to $23, Jamf priced its debut at $26 per share. It was worth around $3 billion at its IPO price, up around 50% from its final private price. Today it’s worth about $35 per share, valuing the whole affair at $4 billion. A solid result. B+.
- Asana: One of this year’s direct listings, Asana’s financials included greater losses than we had anticipated. But the firm had raised lots of pre-IPO debt, so it followed through with its direct listing plans all the same. From a reference price of $21, the company appreciated. Today it’s worth $24 per share, give or take, or $3.85 billion. The company was last valued at around $1.5 billion in 2018. B.
- Sumo Logic: Sumo Logic was a simple IPO. It was worth $1 billion before it went public. It was worth $2.2 billion at its IPO price of $22 per share. Today it is worth a little more than $24 per share. That’s just fine! B-.
- Casper: The unprofitable D2C mattress brand has a somewhat sad path to the public markets, lowering its IPO price range from $17 to $19 per share to $12 to $13 per share. Finally priced at $12 per share, Casper is worth around $7 today. It didn’t raise as much money as it hoped, and has struggled since. D.
Mostly IPOs have gone really well this year. Let’s see if we can get another few in before 2020 closes.
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