IPO
Shopify, a Canadian provider of e-commerce solutions to small and medium sized enterprises, went public on Thursday after selling shares at $17 apiece, up from an initial price range of $12-$14, to raise around $131 million. The stock still managed to pop 51% on the first day, closing at $25.68. Shares are being sold on both the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). Pre-IPO backers of Shopify included Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, and Insight Venture Partners. Shopify’s market capitalization based on Thursday’s closing share price was $1.92 billion.
A Chinese e-commerce company backed by Alibaba, Baozun, also had an IPO on Thursday, selling American Depositary Shares on Nasdaq at an initial price of $10 apiece. They finished the first day at $10.44. Baozun serves as a brand consultant and e-commerce provider to multinationals looking to do business in China.
Xactly Corp., whose software is used by Fortune 500 companies to automate their compensation, has filed for a $75 million IPO. The ten year old, San Jose, Calif.-based company has raised nearly $86 million and reported $61 million in sales in FY 2014. It will trade on the NYSE, with JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and UBS expected to serve as lead underwriters.
AppFolio, a maker of property management software, has filed for a $100 million IPO. The company was founded in 2006 and has raised $30 million from investors like e.ventures, Cisco, and Investment Group of Santa Barbara.
M&A
Apple has also acquired Coherent Navigation, a precision GPS start-up, to beef up its mapping service. As is typical of acquisitions by Apple of smaller tech companies, terms of the deal were not disclosed. Coherent Navigation is the latest mapping company to be purchased by Apple. In 2013, it acquired BroadMap, Embark, and HotSpot.com.
Sizmek, a publicly traded, New York-based digital advertising firm, has acquired StrikeAd, a platform that helps ad buyers manage mobile advertising campaigns, in an $11.7 million deal. “Through StrikeAd, we will demonstrate how the connectivity of a robust set of ad management solutions can be efficiently combined with media buying,” read a statement on Sizmek’s blog.
The online music streaming service Pandora has acquired Next Big Sound, a New York-based company that tracks the popularity of songs and artists across various websites and social networks, namely YouTube, Twitter, and Wikipedia. Next Big Sound was founded by Alex White in 2007 while he was a student at Northwestern University. It raised a $6.5 million Series A led by the Foundry Group in 2012. Terms of the deal are currently undisclosed.