How This Year’s Tech IPOs Are Doing, And Who’s Next

Leena Rao

Bubble or not, 2011 may go down as the year of the tech IPO. Not since the last bubble have we seen so many technology companies clamoring to go public. And halfway through the year, we still have many more companies who will be listing on either the NASDAQ or the NYSE in the next six months. Here’s a roundup of the tech companies that have gone public, where they are trading now, and who we can expect to see ringing the bell next.

LINKEDIN (NYSE:LNKD)

Professional social network LinkedIn probably had the biggest IPO in terms of hype this year because it was one of the first big social media companies to go public. After pricing its IPOat $45 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, LinkedIn began trading at $83.00 per share on May 19, giving the company a $7.8 billion market cap. In the first day of trading, shares popped up to as high as $122.70, soaring past a $10 billion valuation.

But these high stock prices didn’t sustain and LinkedIn’s value per share dropped significantly over the next month, dropping as low as $63.71 per share. However, the company’s stock rebounded last week, with shares rising as high as $95.50 on Friday, eventually closing at $94.54. That’s a 110 percent increase from its initial pricing.

PANDORA (NYSE:P)

Similar to LinkedIn, music streaming service Pandora also drew considerable attention to its IPO, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the desirable, single character symbol ‘P.’ The company priced its IPO at $16 per share (valuing the company at $2.6 billion), but opened at $20 per share on June 15 (up 25 percent), valuing the company at $3.2 billion.

In the two weeks following the IPO, Pandora’s stock took a bit of a dive, reaching as low as $12.16 per share. But like LinkedIn, Pandora’s shares saw an uptick over the past week, closing at $20.04 on Friday, which is up 25 percent from the company’s initial pricing in June.

YANDEX (NASDAQ:YNDX)

Russian search engine Yandex, which began trading on the NASDAQ on May 24, priced its IPOat $25 per share, but opened at $35, giving Yandex a market cap of roughly $11.2 billion.That’s a bigger market cap than both LinkedIn and Pandora.

Yandex has experienced highs and lows in the past month with the value of its stock, but the fluctuations have not been nearly as extreme as some of its contemporaries in the tech IPO market. Yandex’s stock dipped to a low of $29.73 in mid-June but rebounded quickly and closed on Friday at $35.69, which is a 40 percent increase from its initial pricing.

FUSION-IO (NYSE:FIO)

Fusion-io, the developer of flash- memory technology for companies, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on June 9. The company priced its IPO at $19 per share, valuing Fusion-io at $1.5 billion, but opened at $25 per share, giving the company a nearly $2 billion market cap.

Fusion-io’s stock has performed fairly well over the past month, reaching a high of $36.32 last week. The company’s shares closed at $31.19 on Friday, up 64 percent from its initial pricing.

HOMEAWAY (NASDAQ:AWAY)

Vacation home rental service HomeAway debuted its IPO last week, pricing at $27 per share.HomeAway, which listed on the NASDAQ, saw its shares pop over 30 percent in initial trading last Wednesday, giving the rental service as valuation of $3 billion.

HomeAway’s shares have maintained its value, relatively speaking, in its first week of trading, reaching a low of $34.92 and a high of $42.30. On Friday, HomeAway’s shares closed at $38.42, a 42 percent increase from the stock’s pricing.

RENREN (NYSE:RENN)

Chinese social network Renren actually went public before LinkedIn, pricing its IPO in early Mayat $14 per share, with a total offering size of $743.4 million. The company was pitching itself as a “Facebook” like site for the Chinese market, which resulted in an increase in the share price range from the initial $9-$11 to $12-$14. That increase resulted in a boost in the deal size to $743.4 million from the original price of $584 million.

RenRen opened at $18 per share, but the stock has since plummeted to as low as $6.23 per share. On Friday, RenRen closed at $9.25 per share, which is a 34 percent drop in value from the initial pricing.

BANKRATE (NYSE:RATE)

Bankrate provides free rate information to consumers on more than 300 financial products, including mortgages, credit cards, new and used automobile loans, and more. The company priced its IPO at $15 per share, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. The company’s shares, which began trading in mid-June, have remained fairly steady at this price, reaching a high of $17.89. Bankrate closed at $17.13 per share on Friday, up 13 percent.

Who’s Next Up To IPO

Zillow: Real estate listings giant Zillow filed its S-1 in April, so we could be seeing the company hit the public markets in the next two months. Zillow wants to raise $51.75 million in the offering, and while revenue has grown for the company year over year, Zillow has taked a loss for the past three years. Zillow will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol “Z.”

Kayak: Travel search engine Kayak filed its S-1 last November, aiming to raise $50 million. No word on when the search engine is planning to IPO, but Kayak did reveal revenue growth in the past year, however net income is down. The company will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol “KYAK.”

Groupon: Daily deals giant Groupon just filed its S-1 in June, aiming to raise $750 million in the public offering. Though the company has an impressive revenue run rate of $2.6 billion for 2011, but has drawn criticism for a lack of profits and the fact that the founders have taken a significant amount of money off the table. The company is looking at an IPO in the Fall.

Zynga: Zynga just filed for its $1 billion IPO this past Friday, revealing impressive financials. Revenues grew 392 percent in 2010, up from $121.5 million in 2009. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, the company’s revenues reached $235 million (or a $940 million revenue run-rate), which is up 134 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Both Zynga and Groupon may be rushing to IPO ahead of Facebook, which is expected to file in the coming year.

Not Yet Filed, But Champing At The Bit:

Facebook: We know an IPO is in the works for Facebook, it’s just a matter of when. The company has been meeting with bankers to discuss IPO size and time frame for an offering. And the company just added Netflix founder and CEO (and an IPO veteran) Reed Hastings to its board. It’s been thought that the social network will go public by April 2012, but it could happen before this date.

Glam Media: We’ve heard Glam Media, one of the largest publishing and advertising networks on the Web, is planning to file for an IPO as early as this Fall. The company has hit $100 million in annual revenue, reaches 90 million people a month in the U.S., and is in the process of hiring bankers to lead its offering.

Yelp: Online reviews and daily deals giant Yelp has its sights set on an IPO, but the timeline is unclear. Yelp is now at 50 million unique visitors per month, mostly in the U.S., and has raised $56 million in funding.

Disclosure: My husband is an employee of Groupon.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/04/tech-ipos/

Pandora Boosts Share Price Before IPO

In the wake of LinkedIn‘s successful public offering, Pandorahas boosted the size of its IPO by 43%, raising its share price and the number of shares.

The company is now offering 14.7 million shares for $10 to $12, according to SEC documents. Pandora had filed earlier this month to sell 13.7 million shares for $7 to $9. In total, Pandora plans to take in $176.2 million in its IPO.

The increase comes after LinkedIn’s IPO on May 19, which showed investors’ appetite for social media stocks. LinkedIn shares opened at $45 that day and closed at $94, a 108% gain for the day, raising about $4 billion. The stock was trading at around $72 on Friday morning. Groupon, meanwhile, has filed to raise $750 million in its IPO.

Unlike LinkedIn, which is profitable, Pandora has never been in the black. Pandora lost $1.8 million in fiscal 2010 on revenues of $137.8 million and noted in its SEC filing that “we expect to incur operating losses on an annual basis through at least fiscal 2012.”

Pandora seeks $140 million in IPO | Digital Media - CNET News

Pandora signaled today that its initial public offering was imminent, in a regulatory filing that placed the company's target price between $7 and $9 a share.

At the high end, the Internet radio company would raise nearly $142 million on the sale of 13.7 million common shares, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's a 40 percent increase over the $100 million the company said it hoped to raise in its February SEC filing and would value the Oakland, Calif.-based company at between $1 billion and $1.4 billion.

Founded in 2000 by Tim Westergren, the wildly popular Pandora uses a "music genome" algorithm to create custom radio stations based on a single song or artist and offers paid subscriptions as well as a free, ad-supported version and a suite of popular mobile apps.

Pandora has 90 million registered users, who streamed approximately 3.8 billion hours of radio listening last year. However, the company has yet to turn a profit; it recorded $51 million in revenue during the first three months of 2011 but a loss of $6.7 million, according to today's SEC filing.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup are the lead underwriters on the deal, the proceeds of which will be used to pay accrued and unpaid dividends and for general corporate purposes. The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "P."

The filing comes as interest in technology IPOs is heating up again. Daily-deals company Groupon filed for an IPO today with hopes of raising $750 million. Professional-networking site LinkedIn, which went public two weeks ago, raised $352 million in its IPO, and has a current market capitalization of $7.4 billion.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20068483-93/pandora-seeks-$140-million-in-ipo/#ixzz1OBOCalVw