SailPoint’s IPO on Thursday was a disappointment for anyone hoping it would indicate that tech IPOs are hot again.
The first day’s trading ended below the $23 initial price. The stock fared a tad better Friday, closing at over $24. But that’s nothing close to the big bang companies and VCs hope for.
For instance, ServiceTitan, the last tech IPO in December, was wildly successful. Share price popped from $71 to as high as $105 on Day 1, and is still currently trading at around $100.
Back-to-back successes would have served as a signal that the painfully stuck-closed IPO window is opening at last.
Instead, retail investors are exercising discernment, not wild enthusiasm.
“I’m hesitant to draw too many conclusions on the appetite for tech or software IPOs from it,” IPO expert Nick Einhorn, VP of research for Renaissance Capital, tells TechCrunch. “While the company has good growth, it may not have stood out enough in the cybersecurity landscape to be awarded a premium sales multiple.”
Renaissance Capital is an IPO market research firm that also offers an IPO exchange-traded fund (ETF).
SailPoint was a bit of an odd IPO because it wasn’t a startup. It was previously a public company until PE firm Thoma Bravo took it private in 2022, valuing it at $6.9 billion at the time. The private equity giant is still the majority owner.
This was a leveraged-buyout company as an IPO, not a classic venture backed startup. VC-backed startups going public often have the kind of growth potential that excites investors, as was the case with ServiceTitan.
On the positive side for SailPoint, the company priced its initial 60 million shares at $23, above its previously announced range of $19 and $21. SailPoint raked in over $1.3 billion, which it will use for operations and to pay off about $1.5 billion of debt it showed on its books, according to a regulatory filing. It’s also at about a $13 billion market cap, a boost from what Thoma Bravo paid.
“In no way did we consider this a disappointing IPO. We went from mid-point of $20 to a close of $25 on Day 2. In our minds, it’s a very successful IPO,” CEO Mark McClain told TechCrunch.
Still, the upshot for those looking for a sign that IPOs could be flowing again soon (especially employees of late-stage startups looking at their paper-money stock and stock options): the signals remain murky.
