New York:
Shares of Lemonade, an online insurance company backed by SoftBank Group Corp,more than doubled in its Thursday market debut to reach a $3 billion market cap.
Shares closed $138.79% higher. The company’s stock opened at $50.06 after pricing at $29 per share on Wednesday.
Lemonade Inc had raised $319 million in its U.S. initial public offering.
Lemonade is the latest company to capitalize on the sharp recovery in U.S. investor appetite for new stocks following the coronavirus outbreak. On Tuesday, U.S. business analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet Holdings Inc raised $1.7 billion in its IPO after it sold more stock than expected and at a price above its indicated range.
Lemonade priced 11 million shares at $29 per share, the company said in a statement. The indicated price range earlier on Wednesday was raised to between $26 and $28 per share. Lemonade had previously guided for the offering to be priced between $23 and $26 per share.
The IPO values Lemonade at $1.6 billion. That is less than the $2.1 billion it was valued at last year, after it raised $300 million in a funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank and which included insurer Allianz SE and Alphabet Inc’s venture capital arm GV. Lemonade has pursued breakneck revenue growth at the expense of widening losses.
SoftBank owns a 27.3% stake in Lemonade.
Lemonade, started in late 2016, says it has digitized the entire insurance process, replacing brokers and paperwork with algorithms. It says it provides insurance policies to homeowners and renters in as little as 90 seconds and claim payments in three minutes.It charges renters a monthly subscription rate of $5 and homeowners a monthly rate of $25.
The company will list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “LMND” on Thursday.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Allen & Co and Barclays are the managing bookrunners for the offering.