Considering all of its ups and downs, 2020 was a successful year for global markets, and 2021 IPO firms profited. Companies’ desire to list on public markets has only grown since Airbnb carried off a successful IPO in December 2020 following a year that many predicted would be the end for the company. Despite economic instability, favorable market prospects throughout 2021 produced a record-breaking year for the value of global IPOs and the number of offerings: In contrast to 1,363 for all of 2020, EY reports that there were 1,635 companies that had their IPO in just the first three quarters of 2021. Here are some of the most intriguing from the previous year.
10 Companies That Had Their IPO in 2021
We’re just a couple of weeks away from the 2021 IPO window, and there are already several companies that have filed to go public. Here’s a look at some of the companies that will debut their stock this year:
1. Bumble
Before Whitney Wolfe Herd’s startup, Bumble earned $2.15 billion through its IPO, she already held the title of the queen bee of Austin’s tech industry. After quitting Tinder and filing a lawsuit, she created the woman-first dating app in 2014. She assumed leadership of MagicLab, the parent business of Bumble, in 2019 after its founder Andrey Andreev was accused of misogyny and bigotry. Additionally in that year, she and Bumble worked to pass a new Texas legislation forbidding online sexual harassment. Wolfe Herd became the first self-made billionaire woman at the age of 32 thanks to the IPO, making her the youngest woman to ever take a business public, and the price at IPO is $8.2 billion.
2. Roblox
Roblox is a hugely well-liked online video games and communication platform. It was established in 2004 by Canadian American businessman David Baszucki, who is known as “builder man” online. It estimates that half of the American children under the age of 16 utilize their platform. Which has more than 164 million daily users each month. The firm, which is situated in San Mateo, California, made its heavily hyped public appearance in March. And its stock rose as a result of kids and families continuing to amuse themselves and connect on the platform.
3. Compass
Robert Reffkin is renowned for turning around one of America’s fastest-growing businesses. After receiving a C in school and being raised by a single mother (New York City-based Compass reached No. 71 on the 2018 Inc. 5000). The biggest real estate company in the nation, which offers its agents a variety of digital tools. It benefited from the pandemic’s real estate boom. Before coming public this year, it raised $1.5 billion, and when it emerged, its stock shot up.
4. Coinbase
The San Francisco-based, entirely remote cryptocurrency trading start-up, which was started in June 2012. By former Airbnb engineer Brian Armstrong, found its footing in Y Combinator. It was the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the US by trading volume at the beginning of 2021. (However, it also consented to pay $6.5 million. To resolve charges by regulatory bodies that it had misled them about such trade volumes.) The Company of the Year for 2021, Coinbase, Inc., submitted a direct listing application in January. As cryptocurrency cemented its position in the zeitgeist, it remained in the news throughout the year.
5. AppLovin
First, John Krystynak, Adam Foroughi, and Andrew Karam collaborated to form the virtual events company Social Hour. They established AppLovin in 2012, a business that aids in the creation, distribution, and growth of apps and games. The Palo Alto, California-based firm exhibited impressive growth after two years of operation in stealth mode. Placing 68 on the 2016 Inc. 5000.
Intriguingly, the U.S. authorities blocked the sale of the company to a Chinese company the same year. Now that it is a publicly-traded company, AppLovin is still one to keep an eye on because it has been on an acquisition binge this year, purchasing Twitter’s MoPub for $1.1 billion and the mobile monetization company Adjust for allegedly $1 billion.
6. Freshworks
Freshworks was first launched as a scrappy customer service business in Chennai, India, in 2010 by Silicon Valley veteran Girish Mathrubootham, seeking to compete with Salesforce and Zoho. With 13 locations now, it serves more than 50,000 enterprises globally with cloud-based client tool suites. The corporate software provider, which has a location in San Mateo, California, is the first Indian SaaS company to list on the Nasdaq.
7. Warby Parker
Warby Parker, founded in 2010 by four Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni in New York City, before going public, carefully planned every element of its brand, price, as well as business model. The glasses were priced at a little under $100 for a pair. And the company included a social goal to help individuals in need by providing them with eyewear and care.
The very solid strategy used to create the glasses empire also appeared to serve as an example for hundreds of other DTC businesses over the course of the decade. The business, which is still not profitable, recorded $271 million in income in the first half of 2021, an increase of almost $100 million from the same period in 2020 when it suffered significantly from the loss of retail stores.
8. Rent the Runway
The ecosystem of online garment reuse had a noteworthy year. Rent the Runway, situated in New York City, decided to go public with Poshmark and ThredUp. Created in 2009 by Jennifer Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman, the online fashion rental startup grew to a $1 billion business by 2019 before suffering a substantial setback from lockdowns and remote work brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even yet, the business created history this year when it became the first firm to go public with a female founder who also served as its CEO, COO, and CFO.
9. Robinhood
One of the most eagerly awaited initial public offerings of the year came from Robinhood, the well-known trading app that had been in the spotlight for its involvement in the GameStop saga as well as its frequent outages. When he gave evidence in front of the U.S.
House Committee on Financial Services in February regarding the GameStop short squeeze, co-founder Vlad Tenev, who founded the business with Baiju Bhatt in 2013 after the two met while studying mathematics at Stanford, came under fire for not providing specific answers to many of the questions. The stock of the Menlo Park, California-based business has experienced significant swings since becoming public in July, mirroring the business’ pre-IPO behavior.
10. Udemy
Udemy, a San Francisco-based provider of online learning, made its debut on the public markets in October, following in the footsteps of its ed-tech competitors Coursera and Duolingo earlier in the year. More than 200 million people have enrolled in courses on Udemy, a platform that specializes in professional and competence education. Eren Bali, the company’s creator, recently led another business, Carbon Health, to hyper-fast growth, placing it at the top of the 2021 Inc. 5000.
Bottom Lines
Above are some innovative, smart companies that had their IPOs in 2021. While only a small sample of the companies having an IPO in 2021, we think this list is representative of the product-based companies with the most growth potential. They all have the potential to be long-term winners for the stock market investor. No doubt, there will be many other IPOs in 2021 but these companies seem poised for a successful first day of trading and beyond.
