(Bloomberg) -- Online meeting and planning service Eventbrite Inc. rose as much as 68 percent after raising $230 million in its initial public offering.
The San Francisco-based company sold 10 million shares for $23 each Wednesday, pricing them at the top of an increased marketed range. Eventbrite had initially offered them for $19 to $21 each and then increased that range to $21 to $23.
The shares, which opened at $36, were up 63 percent to $37.57 at 12:09 p.m. in New York trading on Thursday, giving the company a market value of $2.9 billion.
Led by co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Julia Hartz, the company makes a platform for customers to sell tickets for concerts, classes, fundraisers and other events. Eventbrite charges based on how many attendees buy tickets. More than 700,000 event creators used the site in 2017, issuing 203 million tickets for 3 million events in 170 countries, according to a regulatory filing.
The company's revenue for the first six months of the year rose to $142.1 million from $88.2 million for the same period in 2017, the filing shows. Eventbrite's net loss climbed to $15.6 million in the first half, up from $8.3 million the previous year.
Tiger Global Management is the company's largest existing backer and is expected to wield 20.8 percent of the voting power after the IPO, according to the filing. That's followed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital with 17.6 percent and Hartz with 14.6 percent. Square Inc. struck a deal last September to process payments for Eventbrite and made a investment of $25 million in the startup.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Allen & Co. and Royal Bank of Canada led the offering. The shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EB.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Barinka in San Francisco at abarinka2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Matthew Monks
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