It’s no longer Hot Summer anything, sadly, as the seasons change. But perhaps we’re in for Warm IPO Autumn.
Rent the Runway, NerdWallet and other companies are setting us up for a busy second half of October. But this week will see the debut of a company worth a multiple of those other venture-backed former startups as GitLab goes public. And the developer tooling company recently turned up the valuation heat.
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This week, GitLab updated its IPO filing to include a higher expected pricing interval. The unicorn now anticipates that it will sell shares in its IPO for between $66 and $69 apiece, up from a previous range of $55 to $60.
That’s quite the jump!
Our task this morning is straightforward: We’re calculating GitLab’s new simple IPO valuation range and working out what the company could be worth on a fully diluted basis. Then we’ll execute some revenue multiples work, hoping to suss out if our earlier estimations of the company’s value are holding up, and what the IPO’s possible pricing says about the software market more broadly.
This is one of those posts that’s only good news for startups and their backers. For the other side of this particular coin, head here. Ready? Into the breach.
What’s GitLab worth?
In its first IPO price range, with 143,534,821 shares outstanding after its offering (inclusive of its underwriters’ option), GitLab was set to be worth $7.9 billion to $8.6 billion. IPO-watching Renaissance Capital reported that at the “midpoint of [its first] proposed range, GitLab would command a fully diluted market value of $9.4 billion.”
Or more precisely, at $57.5 per share, GitLab would be worth $9.4 billion. At $60 per share, that number would scale to $9.8 billion.
Now at $66 to $69 per share, the company’s expected 143,534,821 post-IPO share count works out to a simple valuation range of $9.5 billion to $9.9 billion. Translating the company’s fully-diluted valuation at $57.5 per share to $69 per share, we can estimate that when counting all shares including those that may be exercised, GitLab could be worth as much as $11.3 billion.
I could have showed a little less work there, but I want you to walk along with me as we tinker with the numbers.
Is that expensive?
Let’s find out!