Upstart Shares Jump 47% On First Day Of Trading

Shares of lending platform Upstart soared after the company’s initial public offering Wednesday, closing up 47 percent and giving the company a market cap of $2.14 billion.

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The San Carlos, California-based company priced its shares at $20 late Tuesday—the low end of its $20 to $22 pricing range—but watched them close at $29.47.

The company raised $180 million from its IPO.

Upstart was founded in 2012 by Dave Girouard, formerly of Google. The fintech company uses artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools to make lending decisions and predict creditworthiness.

According to the S-1, Upstart saw its revenue nearly triple to $164.2 million between 2017 and 2019. The company said revenue for the first nine months of this year was $146.7 million—44 percent more than the same period last year.

Upstart also reported net earnings of $5 million for the first nine months of the year, compared to a net loss of $6.5 million for the same period last year.

The company had raised a total of approximately $144 million in funding, according to Crunchbase data.

Investors that held more than a 5 percent stake in the company before the IPO were Third Point Ventures (19.4 percent), Stone Ridge Trust (9 percent), Khosla Ventures (8.3 percent), Rakuten (5.3 percent) and First Round Capital (5.1 percent), according to the company’s S-1 filing.

Girouard, who serves as Upstart’s CEO, held 21.9 percent stake in the company before the IPO.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.