INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
As the holiday slowdown looms, the final U.S.-listed technology IPOs have come in and begun to trade.
Three tech, tech-ish or
venture-backed companies went public this week: Bill.com, Sprout Social and EHang
Let quickly review how each has performed thus far
These are, bear in mind, the last IPOs of the year that we care about, pending something incredible happening
2020 will bring all sorts of fun, but, for this time &round the sun, we&re done.
Pricing
Our three companies managed to each price
So, we have some variety to discuss
Here how each managed during their IPO run:
EHang priced at the bottom of its range, selling shares for $12.50 apiece
Sprout Social priced
mid-range at $17 per share after targeting a $16 to $18 per-share price interval
Bill.com priced above its raised range, selling shares at
$22 apiece after raising its interval from $16 to $18 to $19 to $21
How do those results stack up against their final private valuations?
Doing the best we can, here how they compare:
EHang was worth around $680 million at its IPO price
The company final private valuation (likely set during its $42 million Series B) is unknown
However, we&d guess that the IPO was at a higher price, given the time between the private round and the IPO.
Sprout Social managed to
slightly raise its valuation in its IPO
Worth around $814 million in the liquidity event, Sprout had been worth just over $800 million when private.
Bill.com was valued at around
$1.6 billion in its IPO, comfortably above its final private valuation of $1.0 billion.
So EHang priced low and its IPO is hard to vet, as
we&re guessing at its final private worth
We&ll give it a passing grade
Sprout Social priced mid-range, and managed a slight valuation bump
We can give that a B, or B+
Bill.com managed to price above its raised range, boosting its valuation sharply in the process
That worth an A.
Performance
Trading just wrapped, so how have our companies performed thus far in their nascent lives as public companies?
Here the scorecard:
EHang Friday closing price: $12.90 (+3.2%)
Sprout Social Friday closing price: $16.60 (-2.35%)
Bill.com Friday closing
price: $38.83 (+76.5%)
You can gist out the grades somewhat easily here, with one caveat
The Bill.com IPO massive early success has caused the usual complaints that the firm was underpriced by its bankers, and was thus robbed to
This argument makes the assumption that the public market initial pricing of the company once it began trading is reasonable (maybe!) and
that the company in question could have captured most or all of that value (maybe!).
Bill.com CEO reaction to the matter puts a new spin on
it, but you should at least know that the week most successful IPO has attracted criticism for being too successful
So forget any chance of an A+.
Image via Getty Images / Somyot Techapuwapat / EyeEm
