Pinterest IPO Raises $1.4 Billion

Pinterest raised about $1.4 billion in an above-range initial public offering, according to Bloomberg. Shares climbed as much as 33 percent in its trading debut.

Pinterest operates in a crowded digital marketing space, where Google and Facebook get the lion’s share of ad dollars, and a smattering of smaller platforms like Twitter and Snap. get the rest. The company, which serves as a sort of digital bulletin board for pictures and ideas for furniture, fashion, weddings, recipes and more, has a direct line to millions of people who are looking for specific things to buy. That may give it an edge in making money from its user base compared with some of its peers.

CEO Ben Silbermann likes to project a more virtuistic, less competitive vision of Pinterest, but investors will still be scrutinizing its advertising model. There are a lot of options to place bets on hot technology companies: Ride-hailing company Lyft made its debut this month and Uber is likely to list its shares in May. Videoconferencing company Zoom Video raised $751 million in its IPO Wednesday and will begin trading Thursday along with Pinterest. Other high-profile companies considering going public include Slack, Postmates, Palantir and Airbnb.

Pinterest sold 75 million shares Wednesday for $19 each, after marketing them for $15 to $17, according to a statement. Based on the number of Class A and B shares outstanding after the offer, as detailed in a regulatory filing, Pinterest’s IPO price would value it at about $10.1 billion. Including restricted stock and options, the IPO values the company at about $12.7 billion, said a person familiar with the matter. Pinterest’s last valuation, from a private funding round in 2017, was $12.3 billion. Shares opened at $23.75. They closed up 28 percent to $24.40 in New York trading, giving the company a market value of about $12.9 billion.