Bill.com went public today after pricing its shares higher than it initially expected.
The B2B payments company sold nearly 10 million shares at $22 apiece, raising around $216 million in its IPO.
Public investors felt that the companys price was a deal, sending the value of its equity to $35.51 per share as of the time of writing.Thats a gain of over 61%.On the heels of its successful pricing run and raucous first days trading, TechCrunch caught up with Bill.com CEO Ren Lacerte to dig into his companys debut.
We wanted to know how pricing went, and whether the company (which possibly could have valued itself more richly during its IPO pricing, given its first-day pop) had considered a direct listing.Lacerte detailed what resonated with investors while pricing Bill.coms shares, and also did a good job outlining his perspective on what matters for companies that are going public.
As a spoiler, he wasnt super focused on the companys first-day return.For more on the Bill.com IPOs nuts and bolts, head here.
Lets get into the interview.The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Questions have been condensed.TechCrunch:How did your IPO pricing feel, and what did you learn from the process?Lacerte: I think the whole experience has been an incredible learning experience from a capitalism perspective; thats probably a broader conversation.
But you know, it really came down to how our story resonated with investors, and so theres three components that we kind of really talked to folks about.