By all accounts 2021 stands as a strong year for equities.
We’re two weeks away from the end of a volatile 12-month span that, at this writing, has seen the tech-heavy Nasdaq surge by more than 22%.
And yet, that success has not been a hallmark, necessarily, of initial public offerings (IPOs) — for firms that have gone the traditional route or for firms that have gone public through special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) mergers.
As Bloomberg noted Thursday (Dec. 9), more than 130 tech-focused IPOs raised more than $60 billion in the U.S. this year. But a crop of busted IPOs have brought down performance, and there have been some notable slides amid high-profile platforms.
Case, or cases in point: In recent days, Grab, the tech firm with ambitions to become a super-app, with reach far beyond its core ride-hailing holdings, sank 20% on its first day of trading.
Read here: Grab Loses a Fifth of Share Value on Day One as Public Company.
The shares initially opened at a bit more than $13 last week on the first trading day; they’re down 11% on Dec. 9, changing hands at $7.88. Another high-profile busted IPO can be found with Didi, also a marquee name in ride-hailing. The company went public earlier this year at $14. Amid the news of delisting the shares are now trading below half those levels.
The list goes on, and it may seem that only Roblox has emerged unscathed, up more than 170% YTD. The continued embrace of buy now, pay later (BNPL) at the point of checkout has helped buoy Affirm, which IPO’d this year, and which has gained more than 150%.
Nubank now joins the parade — and enters the thick of the volatility.
As reported in this space, the Brazilian FinTech’s valuation is up to $41.5 billion — higher than the country’s largest bank, Itaú Unibanco, as the company debuts on the New York Stock Exchange.
See: Nubank Goes Public at $41.5B Valuation with LatAm Growth on Horizon
At least some rockiness, should it come, may be tied to the fact losses may invite investor caution, and the IPO already had been downsized.
As reported, Nubank revenue doubled to $1.1 billion through September compared to the same time one year earlier, but its net losses jumped from $64.4 million to $99.1 million.
In the meantime, as estimated by PYMNTS, planned IPOs — across both the SPAC and traditional routes — stood at 65 in the banking space.
To that end, in recent listings, SPACs seemed to have a bit of resurgence in the last few days. FinTech-focused SPAC Motive Capital II went public with an upsized $300 million debut, with an offering that included 5 million more units than had been anticipated.
Separately, Samsara, focused on the Internet of Things, is readying for a more than $750 million IPO. The firm said in its SEC filing that it has 13,000 core customers, and that “We are solving the problem of opaque operations and disconnected systems. By harnessing recent advancements in IoT connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and video imagery, we are enabling the digital transformation of physical operations. Using our Connected Operations Cloud, customers can visualize their physical operations in real-time, on one integrated platform in a way that would have been impossible and impractical only a few years ago.”
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