Ad tech company The Trade Desk goes public at $28.75 per share — a huge pop on its $18 price target

Lara O'Reilly
0
jeff green
jeff green

(The Trade Desk CEOLinkedIn)

California-based ad tech company The Trade Desk debuted on the Nasdaq on Wednesday at $28.75.

That's a nice pop on the $16 to $18 per share price range the company had set on Monday – with the Trade Desk opening up 59.33%.

The Trade Desk is a demand-side platform that works with advertising agencies, allowing them to buy online ads using automated technologies.

The firm offered 4,666,667 shares of its Class A common stock in its IPO, while shareholders are selling up to 700,000 Class A common shares.

While the stock price is likely to move around a lot in its opening week, it sets The Trade Desk's market cap north of $1 billion. The stock was at $28.64 roughly 1 hour after opening, at 11:49 a.m. EST. The shares closed at $30.10 at the end of trading.

In a note sent to clients earlier this week, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser predicted investors would place a high valuation on the company, "likely approaching or exceeding $1 billion in the near term and making it the second most valuable ad tech pure-play after Criteo." France-based Criteo has a market cap north of $2 billion.

The Trade Desk's stock market debut marks the first pure-play ad tech IPO since MaxPoint listed — with a disastrous 15% share price drop in its first day of trading — in March 2015.

The Trade Desk IPO was underwritten by Citigroup, Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets, Needham, and Raymond James.

Here's a run-down of some of the most important numbers from The Trade Desk's S1 filing (year end 2015, except where stated):

Revenue: $113.8 million, up 155.5% year-on-year

Adjusted EBITDA: $39.2 million, up 589% year-on-year

Cash: $37.6 million (as of June 30, 2016)

Gross spend: $552.3 million

Gross billings: $529.9 million

Accounts receivable, net: $191.9 million

Accounts payable: $108.5 million

We are covering The Trade Desk's IPO live. Please refresh this page for updates.

NOW WATCH: The world’s largest pyramid is not in Egypt



More From Business Insider

Advertisement