Squarespace has registered roughly 40 million shares for its direct listing in New York later this month, marking one other win for advocates of the more and more fashionable various to the preliminary public providing (IPO).
Founded in 2003 by Chief Executive Anthony Casalena in his dorm room on the University of Maryland, the web site constructing and internet hosting agency was valued at practically $10 billion in March when it raised $300 million from traders together with Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, and Fidelity Management & Research Company.
Squarespace joins a clutch of high-profile expertise startups, together with Roblox and Coinbase, in selecting to go public by a direct itemizing this 12 months.
In a direct itemizing, no shares are bought prematurely versus an preliminary public providing. The worth at debut is set by orders coming into the inventory alternate.
Advocates of the method argue it’s a higher solution to worth new shares after the large first-day pops of the latest choices of firms akin to Airbnb and DoorDash raised considerations that they left cash on the desk of their IPOs.
Reuters reported in March that high-flying grocery supply app Instacart, which was valued at $39 billion throughout its final funding spherical, can also be anticipated to go public by a direct itemizing. Job portal Ziprecruiter has additionally filed to record its shares by the identical route.
Squarespace’s shares will begin buying and selling on the New York Stock Exchange on May 19 underneath the ticker image “SQSP”, the corporate stated. The New York-based agency, which competes with Wix.com Ltd and GoDaddy, had confidentially filed for a inventory market itemizing in January.
Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital and RBC Capital Markets are among the many monetary advisers for the itemizing.
