Zoom, the developer of video conferencing software, is now a public company.
Shares soared over 80% in its public debut today. Shares, which began trading at $65 a piece, closed at $62, up 72.2% from the price of $36 set yesterday ahead of the opening. Zoom ended its first day with a market valuation of about $16 billion.
And that $36 price was already above the expected price range of $28 and $32 per share. That would have valued the company at around $9 billion, about nine times the valuation at its last funding round.
Following a slew of of high-profile IPOs, investors seem to like that, unlike many other tech unicorns, Zoom is already profitable—and, hence, doing so much better than many others. For instance, Pinterest, which also debuted today, rose over 28%, with initial pricing at $19. Lyft priced its IPO at $72 per share, popping as much as 23% but ended trading just 8.7% up, at $78.29, in its debut last month. Levi’s shares surged 32% in its debut.
Founded in 2011 by former Cisco Webex head engineer Eric S. Yuan, Zoom sells subscriptions for enterprise-level video-conferencing services. Headquartered in San Jose, Zoom says its competitors include Microsoft’s Skype, Google, and LogMeIn, according to the S-1 filing. The software is used across various industries from universities to hospitals to private employers like Uber, Wells Fargo, and VMware.
Similar to other companies that recently IPO’d, Zoom is going public with dual-class shares, which allows the founders to maintain voting rights while still raising money.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang, Yuan said that the price of their shares is “too high.” Following Lyft’s recent IPO and its volatility on the market, he’s wary of the huge pop. Yuan said that Zoom will continue focusing on expansion, but also taking a much more “disciplined” approach, and making sure they continue to stay cash flow positive.