After pricing at $27 per share, Datto’s stock rose during regular trading. By mid-afternoon the data and security software company was worth $28.10, up a hair over 4%.
The company’s IPO comes on the back of a rapid-fire Q3 in which a host of technology companies, particularly software, made it to the public markets. While the number of un-exited unicorns in the United States still rose in the quarter, Q3 brought with it a wave of liquidity that felt long coming.
Datto’s IPO is one among what appears set to be a smaller Q4 class, though offerings like Airbnb and Affirm are still tipped to be coming in short order. Airbnb and Affirm each announced that they have filed privately to float, though have yet to publicly drop their S-1 filings.
The Datto IPO was interesting for a few reasons, including its mix of slower growth and rising profitability, its place in the midst of the current Vista drama, and how well it was priced.
While 2020 has brought with it many venture-backed IPOs, the year has also brought a nearly commensurate number of complaints about the IPO process itself. After many tech, and tech-ish, companies saw their values skyrocket after pricing and listing, vocal tech and venture figures argued that IPOs were effectively handing upside from companies to underwriting banks, and their customers.
There was some merit to the arguments. Datto, however, will not stoke similar fires. Up a mere few points from its IPO price, it was priced pretty much perfectly from the perspective of raising as much money as it could for itself in its debut.
Datto will use its IPO proceeds to pay down debts that it accrued during its takeover from Vista (private equity: a good deal for private equity). However, Datto’s CEO Tim Weller told TechCrunch in a call that the company will still be well-capitalized after the public offering, saying that it will have a very strong cash position.
The company should have places to deploy its remaining cash. In its S-1 filings, Datto highlighted a COVID-19 tailwind stemming from companies accelerating their digital transformation efforts. TechCrunch asked the company’s CEO whether there was an international component to that story, and whether digital transformation efforts are accelerating globally and not merely domestically. In a good omen for startups not based in the United States, the executive said that they were.
The company did not entertain a SPAC-led public debut, with Datto’s founder, Austin McChord, saying that his company had long planned a traditional public offering. Closing on the Vista front, McChord said that the removal of Vista’s Brian Sheth was immaterial to Datto’s IPO process.
