C3.ai (AI proposed), DoorDash (DASH proposed) and Airbnb (ABNB proposed) are the hottest tickets to the Unicorns’ Ball this week. C3.ai is generating a lot of buzz – no mean feat in a week when two celebrity unicorns, DoorDash and Airbnb, are set to go public at last.
Bankers expect to raise about $8.4 billion from 13 deals on this week’s IPO Calendar in what is shaping up as the busiest year-end pace for IPOs in recent memory. DoorDash and Airbnb account for about $6 billion, or 72 percent, of this week’s $8.4 billion in estimated IPO proceeds.
“They’re not just unicorns. They’re household names and everybody wants to play,” a veteran trader said of DoorDash, the restaurant takeout-delivery app, and Airbnb, the online vacation home-rental booking company. “Stock is going to be hard to get, I think.”
IPO investors are in a buoyant mood during the countdown for the DoorDash and Airbnb IPOs after both unicorns increased the price ranges for their initial public offerings in a sign of strong demand:
*DoorDash raised its price range to $90 to $95 on Friday, Dec. 4, up from its initial range of $75 to $85, and
*Airbnb increased its price range to $56 to $60 early today (Monday, Dec. 7) in an S-1/A filing – up from its initial range of $44 to $50. The move was predicted by The Wall Street Journal in an exclusive story published online Sunday night.
The DoorDash deal is set for pricing Tuesday night, followed by Airbnb, scheduled for pricing Wednesday night. The drum beats over when these companies would go public have been rumbling since last year.
Even the unicorn skeptics – those who question the valuations, the financial outlooks or both – are playing the deals.
In the universe of unicorns, DoorDash and Airbnb are a bit like the Kardashian sisters. DASH and ABNB are California natives that burst onto the scene in the late 2000s and 2010s and quickly dominated American pop culture. DASH and ABNB have attracted billions in VC funding and revenues. Unlike the Kardashians, these companies are not yet profitable. (A unicorn is a private company with a market valuation of at least $1 billion or more.)
C3.ai also bumped up its IPO price range early today to $36 to $38, up 13.8 percent from its initial range of $31 to $34, in an SEC filing dated Dec. 7 – a confirmation of strong demand. Wall Street sees C3 as “the deal of the week.” As far as unicorns go, C3 has a much lower profile than DoorDash and Airbnb. But C3 is definitely a star within the artificial intelligence sector. It caters to Fortune 500 companies and government alike. IPO investors like the sector and the company.
“AI is a hot sector. A lot of people want to be in C3 because of the billionaire who’s running it,” an experienced trader told IPOScoop.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in banking, biotech (drug development) and other healthcare applications, shopping, the Internet of Things and self-driving cars – via face recognition, speech recognition and other processes.
December Moonshot
Seer, Inc. (SEER) scored a moonshot on Friday, Dec. 4, its first day of trading. The protein analysis systems company’s IPO was priced at $19 on Thursday night, Dec. 3, and jumped on Friday to close at $56.46, up 197.2 percent.
A moonshot occurs when an IPO gains at least 100 percent from its IPO price – essentially doubling its IPO price or more – in its first day of trading.
The Week Ahead
Ten traditional IPOs and three SPAC deals are scheduled so far this week. Of the 10 IPOs, three are unicorns, two are tech companies, four are in the health-care sector, two are small-cap deals and one is in the hydroponics field. More special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), also known as blank-check companies, are likely to jump onto the IPO Calendar this week.
Let’s take a look at this week’s IPOs, organized by pricing and trading dates.
Monday night pricing for Tuesday trading:
Concord Acquisition Corp. (CND.U proposed) is a New York-based SPAC focused on financial services and FinTech companies.
This is an IPO of 20 million units at $10 each to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Cowen is the sole book-runner.
DD3 Acquisition Corp. II (DDMXU proposed) is a Mexico City-based SPAC. Its focus will be on target companies in Mexico or Hispanic businesses in the United States.
This is an IPO of 10 million units at $10 each to trade on the NASDAQ. EarlyBirdCapital is the sole book-runner.
Tuesday night pricing for Wednesday trading:
C3.ai. Inc. (AI proposed) is an enterprise AI software company that provides software-as-a-service, or SaaS, to big corporations (AstraZeneca and Shell, for example) and the U.S. Air Force. The company, founded in 2009 by tech billionaire Tom Siebel, will have a market cap of about $3.6 billion – if its IPO is priced at the mid-point of its upwardly revised price range.
This is an IPO of 15.5 million shares at $36 to $38 each to trade on the NYSE. The deal would raise about $573.5 million, if priced at the mid-point.
Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and BofA Securities are the joint book-runners.
HumanCo Acquisition (HMCOU proposed) is a health and wellness-focused SPAC based in Austin, Texas.
This is an IPO of 22.5 million units at $10 each to trade on the NASDAQ. Citigroup is the sole book-runner.
DoorDash, Inc. (DASH proposed) was born in January 2013 when Tony Xu and a few of his friends at Stanford launched a website displaying menus from local restaurants in Palo Alto, California. Since then, DoorDash has grown to connect over 390,000 merchants and over 18 million consumers and over 1 million Dashers, as it calls its contract delivery people.
DoorDash increased its price range to $90 to $95, up from $75 to $85, on 33 million shares to trade on the NYSE, according to its S-1/A filing dated Dec. 4.
Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are the joint lead managers.
Note: The San Francisco-based company generated $2.2 billion in revenue in the last 12 months, with more people – especially millennials – using its food-delivery service during the COVID-19 pandemic. But DoorDash also had a net loss of about $283 million during that trailing 12-month period, according to financial statements in the prospectus.
Oriental Culture Holding LTD. (OCG proposed) is an online provider of collectibles and artwork e-commerce services, which allow collectors, artists, art dealers and owners to access a much bigger art trading market than they could likely encounter without its platforms.
This is an IPO of 5.1 million shares at $4 each to trade on the NASDAQ. ViewTrade Securities, Prime Number Capital and China Tonghai Securities Limited at the joint book-runners.
PubMatic (PUBM proposed) is a cloud infrastructure platform that lets ad buyers do real-time programmatic ad transactions with publishers. The Redwood City, California-based company says that in the third quarter of 2020, it served about 1,100 publishers and app developers, including Verizon Media Group, News Corp. and other leading digital media companies.
This is an IPO of 5.9 million shares at $16 to $18 each to trade on the NASDAQ. Jefferies and RBC Capital Markets are the joint book-runners.
Wednesday night pricing for Thursday trading:
Airbnb, Inc. (ABNB proposed) was born in 2007 when two of its founders, who were friends from design school, were struggling to pay the rent on their San Francisco apartment. They saw an opportunity: An international design conference was coming to town and every hotel was sold out. They created a website, AirBedandBreakfast.com, with the hope of renting airbeds in their apartment to conference goers – and three designers took them up on it. Today Airbnb connects more than 4 million hosts who offer everything from a private room in their home to an apartment or a luxury villa in more than 220 countries.
This is an IPO of 51.6 million shares at $56 to $60 each to trade on the NASDAQ, according to the company’s SEC filing early Monday, Dec. 7. The Wall Street Journal had reported on Sunday evening that Airbnb would be increasing its price range to these levels, according to people familiar with the matter. In today’s SEC filing, the number of shares was nipped slightly to 51.6 million, down from 51.9 million shares initially.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are the joint lead managers.
Note: The San Francisco-based company reported $3.7 billion in revenue in the last 12 months and a net loss of about $1.1 billion, according to financial statements in the prospectus. Its business took a hit during the pandemic, although Airbnb did report a profitable quarter.
Some major IPO investors expect that Airbnb will experience an uptick in business in 2022 from people who will prefer staying in an apartment or a home that can be sanitized more easily than a hotel – assuming that COVID-19 vaccines are more available and more people resume traveling again for business or pleasure.
Hydrofarm Holdings Group, Inc. (HYFM proposed) is a leading independent distributor and manufacturer of controlled environment agriculture (“CEA,” principally hydroponics) equipment and supplies. Hydroponics is the soil-less farming of plants (fruit, vegetables, flowers and marijuana) often under artificial lighting, in a controlled indoor or greenhouse environment. The company mostly serves the U.S. and Canadian markets.
This is an IPO of 8.7 million shares at $14 to $16 each to trade on the NASDAQ. J.P. Morgan, Stifel, Deutsche Bank Securities, Truist Securities and William Blair are the joint book-runners.
Note: For the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2020, the company had net sales of $308.5 million.
Thursday night pricing for Friday trading:
AbCellera Biologics (ABCL proposed) is a biotech company that uses its AI-powered drug discovery platform to find antibodies that can be developed as drugs. The company is based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
This is an IPO of 23 million shares at $14 to $17 each to trade on the NASDAQ. Credit Suisse, Stifel, Berenberg, SVB Leerink and BMO Capital Markets are the joint book-runners.
Certara (CERT proposed) says that it accelerates the delivery of medicines to patients using biosimulation software and technology to transform traditional drug discovery and development. Think virtual drug trials in virtual patients. The company is based in Princeton, New Jersey.
This is an IPO of 24.4 million shares at $19 to $22 each to trade on the NASDAQ. Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Credit Suisse, Barclays and William Blair are the joint book-runners.
4D Molecular Therapeutics (FDMT proposed) is a development-stage precision gene therapy company dedicated to pioneering the development of targeted therapies based on its next-generation AAV vectors. (AAV stands for adeno-associated virus.) The Emeryville, California-based company is working on drug product candidates to treat eye diseases, cystic fibrosis and rare diseases.
This is an IPO of 4.8 million shares at $20 to $22 each to trade on the NASDAQ. Goldman Sachs, Evercore ISI and William Blair are the joint book-runners.
Note: This is the company’s second attempt to go public. In July, it withdrew an IPO filing.
Vivos Therapeutics (VVOS proposed) is a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of an oral appliance to help treat patients with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), including mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea. The company believes that its technology and products represent a significant improvement over other sleep-apnea treatments such as the CPAP mask and machine. Vivos Therapeutics is based in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
This is an IPO of 3.3 million shares at $5 to $7 each to trade on the NASDAQ. Roth Capital is the lead manager.
(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO profiles on IPOScoop.com.)
A Peek at Mid-December
Two deals – ContextLogic, Inc. (WISH proposed) and Upstart Holdings, Inc. (UPST proposed) – are scheduled for pricing so far during the week of Dec. 14th. But that could change quickly as the filings keep flowing into the EDGAR window at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Stay tuned.
(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO profiles on IPOScoop.com.)
(Never trade on proposed symbols. You might wind up owning something on the OTC Bulletin Board.)
Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.
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