Pinterest Pricing I.P.O. At $ 19 a share, for a $ 12.7 billion valuation
SAN FRANCISCO – Pinterest on Wednesday priced its shares at $ 19 each for its first public offer, in a sign of a healthy investor demand after the appetite for fast-growing, but money-losing tech companies seemed to be underway . 19659002] The prize appreciated the digital tablet business, which allows people to store images and links from across the web, to $ 12.7 billion. It's just over its last private fundraiser, which had linked the company to $ 12 billion.
By selling $ 19 a share, Pinterest increased $ 1.6 billion from large investors in the offer. The shares will start trading on Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PINS.
Pinterest's pricing can be good for the many "unicorns" – startup worth more than $ 1 billion, which is urgent to the public markets. It follows a rocky debut for the running company Lyft, which was published on March 28.
After a euphoric spike on its first trading day, Lyft's shares sank immediately during their I.P.O. price. The company is still worth more than it was in the private market, but investors who bought in I.P.O. is underwater and may not take on greater risk at startup as Pinterest.
"Coming out of the lift, there was a lot of drama and concern about the appetite investors had for these money-losing businesses," he said. Vincent Ning, research director at Titan Invest, an investment manager.
He said Lyft could have been too aggressive on the pricing, which led Pinterest to take a more conservative thank you. Mr. Ning predicted that this strategy would lead to an inflation in Pinterest shares in the days following its I.P.O.
That appetite will be tested in the coming weeks. Uber, the giant ride-hailing firm and the most prominent player to emerge from this wave of startup, will begin to meet with investors to sell their shares. Slack, a workplace collaboration company, and Postmates, a food supplier, are also expected to uncover their I.P.O. plans.
These unicorns have been waiting longer to go public than previous generations of technological startup, and choose to raise more money from private investors. But their lack of profit and nosebleed valuations have not always been investigated when they became public.
Snapcat's parent company is now worth about half of what it was valued at when it was published in 2017. The share price for Dropbox has been flat since it went public last year to a valuation during its last private market valuation. In 2012, Facebook also experienced a public market competition, with the shares slimming for several months during its I.P.O. price in its first year as a public company.
When Pinterest started talking to investors about its IPO, put a conservative price range that valued it below $ 12 billion, the private valuation it has had since 2015. The strategy can stave off a furious spike and immediate decline as Lyft & # 39; s.
The conservative price was typical of Pinterest's elimination of hype. The company's CEO and co-founder, Ben Silbermann, is an introvert who has built Pinterest slowly and rarely boasts.
"I don't think it's important to focus on the image of speed versus the things our customers and hopefully our future customers will really have," he said in an interview with The New York Times last year.
Mr. Silbermann is "comfortable to be undervalued", Scott Belsky, an early investor in the company, said.
While many start-up founders use their I.P.O. prospectus as an opportunity to be poetic about their company's grandiose mission, was the founder's letter from Pinterest card. It noted that "sometimes" what's important is invisible to the eye, "and thanked investors for considering the company.
The $ 1.6 billion that Pinterest raised is small compared to its peers. Lifting increased $ 2, $ 3 billion, Uber is expected to seek as much as $ 10 billion.
With $ 628 million in cash on balance, Pinterest needs less money, nor is it losing as much money as Lift or Uber. said it had lost $ 63 million in revenue of $ 756 million in 2018. The company, which sells ads, is also growing rapidly and reports a revenue of 60 percent in revenue from 2017 to 2018.
The company is facing stiff competition from digital Advertising behemoths Google and Facebook, which owns Instagram, the company has also listed Allrecipes, a recipe website; Houzz, a home improvement website; and Tastemade, a cooking content as competitors.
In its IPO prospect, owed Pinterest the differences from some of these services. Pinterest is not a social media app to hang out with celebrities or broadcast one's life, the company said. It is meant to be personal. The company's 250 million monthly active users, called "pinners", come to the site to plan their lives, including home projects, weddings and meals.
Although Pinterest's shares are trading a little during their last valuation, early investors in the company will reap great returns. Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have made considerable efforts. Together with Fidelity and Valiant Capital Partners, they have raised over $ 1.5 billion in the company. Mr. Silbermann stands for about $ 981 million from his 11 percent stake.
