Videoconferencing company Zoom priced its IPO at $36 per share, above of its already-increased range. That values the business at $9.2 billion.
Zoom, which is slated to start trading on Thursday on the Nasdaq, had originally given a pricing range of $28 to $32, but investor demand was so high for the profitable, fast-growing company, that the offering ended up well above that mark. CNBC had reported earlier on Wednesday that the company would price at the top end of the increased range — $33 to $35 — and possibly above it.
Zoom will be raising $356.8 million after offering 9.91 million shares in the IPO. Existing shareholders will be offering another 11 million shares.
Founded in 2011 by former Webex head engineer Eric Yuan, Zoom has surged in popularity in a crowded market by providing software that works easily across devices and by groups ranging from small teams to large enterprises. Sales jumped 118 percent last year to $330.5 million, and the company reported net income of $7.58 million.
Investors are paying up for growth. At $36 a share, the company has an enterprise value to sales ratio of 27.5, which among cloud software companies, trails only Zscaler’s ratio of 30.7, according to FactSet.
Zoom will be one of the first big tech IPOs of the year and is scheduled to start trading around the same time as social media company Pinterest. Ride-hailing company Lyft was the first 2019 tech IPO to hit the market last month, but the stock has failed to hold up as larger rival Uber prepares to sell shares in the coming weeks. While Lyft is 17 percent below its IPO price, PagerDuty, the only other notable software share sale of the year, is up 67 percent from its offer price last week.
In addition to Uber, investors are also gearing up for the debut of Slack, which is expected to take the unconventional approach of a direct listing instead of an IPO.
