A parade of initial public offerings (IPOs) from Silicon Valley this year has garnered a mixed reception from investors. Slack Technologies Inc. took a different route on Thursday, and saw its shares soar as it went public without an IPO.

Slack opened at $38.50 on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, well above the reference price of $26 that was set for the shares in the direct listing. The stock closed at $38.62, giving the company a market value of $19.5 billion.

That's a huge increase from Slack's last private funding round in August, which valued the company at $7.1 billion. Thursday's debut makes Slack the second-most valuable technology company to reach U.S. markets this year, topped only by Uber Technologies Inc.'s $75 billion value and bypassing Lyft Inc. at $18 billion.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Thought leadership on regulatory changes, economic trends, corporate success stories, and tactical solutions for treasurers, CFOs, risk managers, controllers, and other finance professionals
  • Informative weekly newsletter featuring news, analysis, real-world case studies, and other critical content
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical coverage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.