Riskified Begins Trading As IPO Values Anti-Fraud Firm At $3.3B

Riskified began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Thursday (July 29), soon after the anti-fraud platform announced the price of its initial public offering (IPO) at $21 per share. The company was trading at approximately $27.60 at around noon Eastern Time.

As Seeking Alpha reported, that number is slightly higher than earlier projections of an $18-20 IPO, valuing the company at $3.3 billion.

According to a company news release, the IPO consists of 17.3 million Class A ordinary shares offered by Riskified and another 200,000 Class A ordinary shares to be sold by one of Riskified’s shareholders.

In addition, the underwriters will have a 30-day option to buy as many as 2.625 million Class A ordinary shares at the IPO price “less underwriting discounts and commissions,” according to the announcement.

Riskified, which is backed by General Atlantic and Fidelity Management, says it will not realize any proceeds from the sale of the shares from its existing shareholders.

Based in Tel Aviv and co-founded eight years ago by Eido Gal and Assaf Feldman, the fraud management firm developed a machine learning platform to deal with issues related to digital payment risk. According to its website, Riskified works with high-profile brands that include Prada, Ticketmaster and Wish.

Fraud has been an ongoing and worsening issue facing banks, FinTechs, digital retailers, cloud companies and government agencies around the globe. A PYMNTS report found that it costs U.S. merchants $2.94 for every $1 of fraud.

As PYMNTS noted last week, Riskified’s SEC filing showed that its revenue in 2020 grew by 30 percent from 2019 to just under $170 million.

Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Securities and Credit Suisse Securities are lead book-running managers. Barclays Capital, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Piper Sandler, Truist Securities and William Blair & Company are joint book-running managers. Loop Capital Markets, Samuel A. Ramirez & Company, Siebert Williams Shank & Co. and Stern Brothers & Co. will serve as co-managers.