Eventbrite, an online platform for live-event ticketing, raised the proposed price of its planned IPO to a range of $21 a share to $23 a share from its previous range of $19 a share to $21 a share.
When IPO candidates increase the price of their offerings, it can signal a strong demand among institutional investors. Eventbrite is planning to sell 10 million shares later this week, listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker EB. At the high end of the new range, Eventbrite’s proceeds from the IPO would total $230 million.
The company was founded in 2006 as a way to make it easier for people to organize and distribute tickets for free and paid live events. Last year, Eventbrite created tickets for 3 million events in 170 countries. Its revenue grew 51% to $202 million in 2017 while its net loss declined to $1.98 a share from $2.48 a share.
In the first six months of 2018, revenue growth accelerated to 61%, while its net loss increased to 73 cents a share from 44 cents a share a year earlier.
Despite the higher net loss so far this year, demand for Eventbrite shares was enough to prompt a higher price. Part of that popularity may come from the successful tech IPOs in the last 12 months, including Roku, Dropbox, Sonos, as well as the direct listing of Spotify. Outside of Eventbrite and SurveyMonkey, there aren’t a lot of well-known tech startups heading through the IPO pipeline later this year.
2018 has been the strongest year for IPOs in several years. According to Dealogic, 120 companies have staged IPOs in the first half of 2018, raising an aggregate of of $35 billion. It’s the best first half for U.S. IPOs since 2014 and one of the busiest periods in the 24 years that Dealogic has been tracking IPO data. Tech offerings have been among the most successful IPOs.
