SVMK Inc. — more commonly known as SurveyMonkey —will price at $12 per share, above the $9 to $11 it had been seeking, in its initial public offering thanks to stronger-than-expected demand from investors.
The company will also upsize its IPO to 15 million shares, higher than the 13.5 million shares the company had initially planned on offering.
Media reports had surfaced that the company would price its IPO above its initial range, according to people familiar with the marketing process who asked to remain anonymous.
SVMK Inc. would raise more than $150 million by pricing above the original range of $9 to $11.
SurveyMonkey also planned to sell $40 million in stock to the venture-capital arm of Salesforce.com Inc. and there are 2.25 million more shares available to underwriters. At the IPO price, and including the Salesforce Ventures sale but not the potential greenshoe, SVMK would pull in $220 million at a valuation of about $1.5 billion
Salesforce Ventures has already agreed to purchase $40 million in a private placement at a price equal to the IPO price. That vote of confidence, in addition to the number of active users (16 million over the last year) and the data insights from the platform, contributed to investor demand.
Investors were also optimistic about the company's future potential despite top-line growth around 14% and widening net losses for the six months through June 30 compared with the prior year.
J.P. Morgan, Allen & Company and Bank of America are leading the offering — which will be listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker "SVMK."
