Roblox Corp. shares surged more than 60% as the tween-centric gaming platform began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Roblox RBLX,
Sidestepping the initial public offering route, Roblox decided to go public through a direct listing, which differs from an IPO in that shares are not backed by underwriters.
In a direct listing, current stakeholders convert their ownership into stock based on trading prices in private markets. In its latest filing, Roblox said nearly 199 million Class A shares had been registered for resale, for a total of about 388.2 million available shares. The public debut of Roblox has been anticipated since word of an IPO began circulating in October.
The company pivoted to plans for a direct listing from a planned IPO back in January after getting a fresh venture-capital infusion of $520 million that valued the company at $29.5 billion.
Read: Roblox is going public: 5 things to know about the tween-centric gaming platform
Roblox reported revenue of $923.9 million and a loss of $257.7 million in 2020, compared with revenue of $508.4 million in revenue and a loss of $71 million in 2019, and revenue of $325 million and a loss of $88.1 million in 2018. The company seeks to grow out its business by retaining its pre-teen users as they grow older while appealing to new users already in their teens or young adulthood.
The past 12 months have been kind to companies going public. As of Tuesday’s close, the Renaissance IPO ETF IPO,
More and more companies have opted for direct listings to go public, such as Spotify Technology SA SPOT,
