Two biotech companies are listing their stocks.
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Six companies listed their shares Friday as the IPO market continues to churn out newly public companies.
Half of the group— biotechs Aura Biosciences and Entrada Therapeutics as well as Airsculpt Technologies , a provider of body contouring services—rose in their debut. The other half, which includes employee-screening firm HireRight Holdings , online learning startup Udemy and Sonendo , a dental technology company, dropped below their IPO prices.
Roughly a dozen firms were expected to go public this week. Of the six IPOs that opened before Friday, the most well known—the chip maker GlobalFoundries (ticker: GFS) and Rent the Runway (RENT), the online fashion-rental company—were the only ones to have fallen below their offer prices. Rent the Runway declined 8% from its $23 offer price on Wednesday, while GlobalFoundries dropped 1.3% from its $47 IPO price.
Also on Thursday, shares of Fluence Energy (FLNC), a provider of energy-storage technology, soared 25% from its $28 IPO price, while Solo Brands, known for its grills and fire pits, rose nearly 4% from its $17 offer price.
On Wednesday, Informatica (INFA), the data-management company backed by the private-equity firm Permira, closed flat at its $29 offer price. And Arteris (AIP), a provider of chip technology, rose 17% after pricing its deal at $14 a share.
Airsculpt (AIRS) led the trio of winners Friday, with shares soaring more than 42%. The stock opened at $12.84, and recently changed hands at $16.20, up $5.20 in mid-day trading.
Late Thursday, Airsculpt raised $77 million after slashing the size and price of its deal. The company had filed to offer 10 million shares at $15 to $17 but chopped that to 7 million shares at $11 to $12. It ended up selling 7 million shares at $11, the bottom of its range.
Airsculpt says its body-sculpting service doesn’t involve needles, scalpels, stitches, or general anesthesia. The company instead uses lasers to soften unwanted fat cells, which it then removes.
Shares of Aura Biosciences (AURA) kicked off at $14.10 and recently changed hands at $15.24, up nearly 9% from its offer price.
Late Thursday, Aura Biosciences increased the size of its deal to 5.4 million shares from 5 million, selling the stock at $14, the bottom of its $14 to $16 price range. The company is developing therapies that target cancer, with an initial focus on ocular and urologic oncology, a prospectus said.
Entrada’s (TRDA) stock rose more than 18%. Shares opened at $26.50 and recently traded at $23.61, up $3.61 from its offer price. Entrada also boosted the size of its deal to about 9.1 million shares, which it sold at $20, the middle of its $19 to $21 price range. Entrada is developing therapeutics to treat rare neuromuscular diseases, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy and myotonic dystrophy type 1, according to a prospectus.
HireRight’s (HRT) stock kicked off at $18 and recently changed hands at $17.32, off nearly 9% from its offer price. This technically makes HireRight a broken deal.
The lackluster debut came after HireRight collected $422 million. The company sold 22.2 million shares at $19 each, below its $21 to $24 price range.
HireRight provides employee background screening, verification, identification, monitoring, and drug and health screening services for more than 40,000 customers. It screened more than 20 million job applicants, employees and contractors for its clients in 2020, the prospectus for the deal said.
Udemy (UDMY) was the only deal Friday to price at the top of the range the company had told investors to expect. It had said the stock would sell for $29 to $29 and unloaded 4.5 million shares at $29, raising $420.5 million.
Udemy also dropped below its IPO price. Shares kicked off at $27 and recently traded at $27.06, off more than 6% from its offer price.
Founded in 2010, Udemy provides online courses in technology and business. Udemy provides more than 183,000 courses in 75 languages in over 180 countries. More than 73 million users have registered with Udemy since the company’s founding, its prospectus said. Insight Partners, a private-equity firm, will own the biggest stake, 30.5%, after the IPO, the prospectus said.
Sonendo (SONX) raised about $94 million after selling 7.8 million shares at $12 each, below its $15 to $17 price range. The stock opened at $9 and recently changed hands at $9.40, down nearly 22% from its offer price.
Sonendo is developing technology to treat tooth decay. Its GentleWave System debrides and disinfects deep regions of the complex root canal system in a less invasive procedure that preserves tooth structure, a prospectus said. The FDA has cleared GentleWave for use in root canals. General Atlantic, the PE firm, will own 12.4% after the IPO.
Write to Luisa Beltran at [email protected]
