Shares of Ibotta — a Denver-based consumer rewards platform that counts major U.S. companies such as Walmart and Kroger as customers — surged in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday. Ibotta’s stock price rose as much as 34% to a high of more than $117, ending the day up a still-impressive 17%.
Ibotta was among the top 10 largest of the nearly 60 IPOs so far this year, and the third-largest tech IPO. The company raised $577 million, pricing its shares above the top of its initial range at $88, valuing the company at $2.7 billion. By the end of the day Thursday, its market cap had risen to $3 billion.
The company makes most of its money from selling its AI-enabled software to businesses. Ibotta’s enterprise business grew more than 700% between 2022 and 2023, largely because of its partnership with Walmart. Though Ibotta hired an adviser for its IPO last fall, it waited until after the debuts of Reddit and AI startup Astera Labs before finally moving forward.
“We had, I think, what Goldman Sachs said was the most investor meetings prior to an IPO that they’ve ever seen in their entire history,” Ibotta CEO Bryan Leach told Quartz in an interview ahead of its first day of trading. “We literally had, before the road show began, over 160 investor meetings individually.”
“And we also felt like, okay, this climate is still very much climbing out of an IPO dead time… therefore if we could be a profitable, high-growth company, we would stand out,” he added.
Ibotta’s successful debut is another positive sign for the tech IPO market comeback after a two year lull. Next on the tech IPO list is Microsoft-backed Rubrik, which aims to raise $713 million in what would be the largest tech IPO of the year so far.