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As Spotify is set to go public, tech education startup Pluralsight files for an IPO too
Despite ongoing market volatility, the market for tech initial public offerings continues to drive full steam ahead.
Music streaming startup Spotify Technologies SA set to go public Tuesday, while Pluralsight LLC, a Utah-based technology education company, filed its IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.
On Tuesday, the long-awaited Spotify public offering won’t actually see the Swedish service, the largest music streamer by both users and paying subscribers, offer new shares to investors. Instead, it will offer shares from existing investors. That means that Spotify’s existing shareholders, which include employees and investors, will be able to list their shares directly to the New York Stock Exchange without going through an underwriter.
Described as an “abnormal day in the history of the IPO,” Recode notes that Spotify is “volunteering itself as a guinea pig for the venture-backed economy by eschewing the traditional help of investment bankers” that are used in a traditional IPO process. If Spotify is successful in its listing, the method may become popular among tech companies as an alternative to a traditional, underwriter-backed IPO.
The success or failure of Spotify’s listing may, however, reflect whether the market believes it can fight off Apple Inc.’s increasingly popular music streaming service.
On the other side of the country, Pluralsight filed its S-1 paperwork with the SEC for a more traditional IPO. Founded in 2004, Pluralsight offers online training for software developers, information technology administrators and creative professionals. The company works on a monthly subscription fee for access to more than 3,000 proprietary courses, including topics such as JavaScript, MySQL and Python.
Said to be profitable from the day it was founded, Pluralsight has raised $238 million coming into its IPO. Fast Company reported that as of a round of $135 million in 2014, the company had a paper valuation of over $1 billion, giving it “unicorn” status.
Spotify and Pluralsight join a growing list of tech companies that have either gone public this year or are planning to, including IPOs from Dropbox Inc. March 22 and Zscaler Inc. March 16. Other companies lining up to go public include DocuSign Inc. and SurveyMonkey Inc.
Photo: RMajouji/Wikimedia Commons
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