Denver’s Ping Identity Opens Up 25% At $18.75 Per Share In Yet Another Enterprise IPO

Ping Identity’s stock opened at $18.75 on its first day of trading, 25 percent higher than its initial public offering price set yesterday.

Ping priced its shares at $15 each on Wednesday after setting a price range of $14 and $16 per share. Its pricing felt conservative, right in the middle of its range. This was likely due to its slower growth rate when compared to some other, recent offerings.

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A 25 percent first-day pop is not uncommon in the IPO markets, but it’s an increasingly unpopular result. In prior times, a similar jump from an IPO share price would have been viewed as a success; today, private investors are worried that money is being left on the table. If Ping had priced higher by a few dollars per share, still less than it trades for today, the company could have added eight-figures to its balance sheet at the cost of zero dilution.

Market exuberance could play a part, however. Datadog, another enterprise-focused tech IPO is up an even sharper 50 percent this morning.

Ping raised $187.5 million in its IPO before trading started began on Thursday. Its stock was trading at $18.66 around 1:30 p.m. EST.

Ping had an interesting path to the public markets. The company was once a venture-backed startup that raised $128.3 million in funding from investors like General Catalyst and DFJ Growth. But it was acquired by Austin’s Vista Equity Partners for $600 million in 2016.It has been a rumoredIPO since last year.

Ping reported that its revenue grew from $99.5 million in the first half of 2018 to $112.9 in the first half of 2019. Its net losses shrank from $5.8 million to $3.1 million in that same time frame.

We’ll be back for an update on its closing price later this afternoon. (Check out Datadog’s performance results here, if you are into the IPO markets.)

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias