But, Mr Keuneman said, the higher profile technology listings of the last fortnight could signal the beginning of a new investing cycle. “It’s early days, but positive signals drive sentiment and ignite what has been a relatively quiet year,” Mr Keuneman said.
He said the Instacart listing could augur well for logistics firms such as 4You, a courier app in which Tidal has a stake, and Klaviyo could be good for e-commerce.
Klaviyo helps businesses communicate with their customers through automated emails and text messages, with most of its clients using the popular online shopping platform Shopify. Shopify put $US100 million ($155 million) into Klaviyo last year and had an 11 per cent stake before the IPO.
Klaviyo’s shares opened trading at $US36.75 after selling for $US30 each in the IPO. The company and selling stockholders had marketed 19.2 million shares for $US27 to $US29.
Like Arm and Instacart, Klaviyo signed up cornerstone investors. BlackRock and AllianceBernstein expressed interest in buying as much as $US100 million of the IPO shares in aggregate, according to Klaviyo’s filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Klaviyo had net income of about $US15 million on revenue of $US321 million for the first six months of the year, compared with a loss of $US25 million on revenue of $US208 million for the same period last year, according to the filing.
The company’s investors include growth equity firm Summit Partners, e-commerce platform Shopify and venture firms Accomplice and Accel. Summit is selling 4.9 million shares in the IPO, while Accomplice is selling almost 1.8 million.
Klaviyo’s largest shareholder will remain co-founder and chief executive officer Andrew Bialecki, who will control 39 per cent of the voting power, followed by Summit with 21 per cent, according to the filings. Mr Bialecki, 37, studied physics, astronomy and astrophysics at Harvard before founding the company in 2012. His stake is worth $US3.4 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The offering was being led by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi.
With Bloomberg
