Opening Day: Naver-backed Webtoon rises in Nasdaq debut

Shares of Webtoon rose in their first trading day this week, with the South Korea-based Naver Corp.-backed company raising about $315M in its U.S. initial public offering. Of note, U.S. IPOs seem to finally be flowing at a steady pace, heading for the best first half of a year since 2021. 

LATEST IPOS AND DIRECT LISTINGS:

Alumis (ALMS) opened on June 28 at $13.50. The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral therapies for immune-mediated diseases had priced its initial public offering of 13.125M shares of common stock at an initial public offering price of $16.00 per share.

LandBridge (LB) opened on June 28 at $19. The company had priced its initial public offering of 14.5M class A shares representing limited liability company interests at a price to the public of $17.00 per share. LandBridge owns approximately 220,000 surface acres across Texas and New Mexico, located primarily in the heart of the Delaware sub-basin in the Permian Basin LandBridge “actively manages its land and resources to support and encourage oil and natural gas production.”

Lakeside Holdings (LSH) opened on June 28 at $5.15. The U.S.-based integrated cross-border supply chain solution provider with a focus on the Asian market had priced its initial public offering of 1.5M shares of common stock at a public offering price of $4.50.

Webtoon (WBTN) opened on June 27 at $21.30. The company had priced its initial public offering of 15M shares of common stock at a price to the public of $21.00 per share. Webtoon is an entertainment company that hosts storytelling platforms. The company says it has “transformed comics and visual storytelling for fans and creators.”

Tamboran Resources (TBN) opened on June 27 at $22.50. The company had priced of its initial public offering of 3.125M shares of common stock at a price to the public of $24.00. Tamboran Resources, through its subsidiaries, is the largest acreage holder and operator with approximately 1.9M net prospective acres in the Beetaloo Sub-basin within the Greater McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Rectitude Holdings (RECT) opened on June 21 at $4. The company had priced 2M shares at $4.00 in an initial public offering. Rectitude is principally involved in the provision of safety equipment and Rectitude’s products and solutions are marketed to a wide array of distributor networks and end markets, both in Singapore and increasingly throughout the Southeast Asian region, including Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

RECENT SPAC IPOS:

• Graf Global (GRAF) opened on June 26 at $10. The blank check company was formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses.
• Flag Ship Acquisition (FSHP) opened on June 18 at $10.05.
• Lionheart Holdings (CUBW) opened on June 18 at $10.01. The blank check company’s primary focus will be in completing a business combination with an established business of scale poised for continued growth, led by a highly regarded management team.
• Melar Acquisition (MACI) opened on June 18 at $10.02. The blank check company may pursue an initial business combination in any business or industry.

END OF THE WEEK PERFORMANCE:

• Alumis – $13.30;
• LandBridge – $23.15;
• Lakeside Holdings – $4.01;
• Webtoon – $22.83;
• Tamboran Resources – $22.50;
• Rectitude Holdings – $3.25.

UPCOMING IPOS: Upcoming IPO and direct listings expected include Pershing Square USA (PSUS), Artiva Biotheraputics (ARTV), OneStream (OS), Solera (SLRA), ShipBob, and StubHub.

Click here to see upcoming IPO calendar on TipRanks.

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square USA, a newly-organized closed-end management investment company, set its initial public offering price at $50 per share. The fund will seek to achieve its investment objective by investing principally in common stocks its investment adviser, Pershing Square Capital Management.

Artiva Biotherapeutics has filed for an initial public offering under the ticker symbol “ARTV” on the Nasdaq. Artiva is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing natural killer cell-based therapies for patients suffering from devastating autoimmune diseases and cancers.

OneStream has filed an initial public offering on the Nasdaq. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are among the lead underwriters. The company says it delivers a unified, artificial intelligence-enabled and extensible software platform – the Digital Finance Cloud – “that modernizes and increases the strategic impact of the Office of the CFO.” OneStream had 1,423 customers as of March 31, 2024, increasing from 1,148 customers as of December 31, 2022. “Our customers are in a broad range of industries, including industrials and manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, consumer and retail, financial services, construction and real estate, government and education, as well as technology, media and communications,” it said. For 2022 and 2023, OneStream’s software revenue was $245.5M and $343.4M, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 40%. The company’s ARR was $335.9M and $460.4M as of December 31, 2022 and 2023, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 37%.

Solera has filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA and Jefferies are among the lead underwriters. The company says it is a global provider of software-as-a-service solutions to the vehicle lifecycle ecosystem, providing asset intelligence. For the 2024 fiscal year, 90% of its total revenues were recurring. In 2024 fiscal year, Solera generated revenue of $2.4B, operating income of $591.7M, operating cash flow of $203.9M, a net loss of ($486.3M), adjusted EBITDA of $1.0B and free cash flow of $93.5M.

ShipBob has selected JPMorgan (JPM) to lead its planned listing, Bloomberg‘s Amy Or, Gillian Tan, and Ryan Gould report, citing people familiar with the situation. The Chicago-based ecommerce fulfillment service provider has also chosen Citigorup (C) as part of the syndicate, the authors say. An initial public offering could occur as soon as later this year and could value the company at $4B, the authors note.

Online ticketing marketplace StubHub aims to go public by late summer, people close to the company told The Information’s Cory Weinberg. StubHub has more than $2B in debt, which is “many times its estimated profits,” so the company will test investors’ appetite for companies with strained balance sheets while StubHub has “ambitious hopes for the valuation it would achieve,” further complicating matters, the report noted. The company would prefer to be valued in line with the $16.5B valuation at which it raised money during the boom of late 2021 and could call off the public listing plans if it can’t get close to that number, the sources indicated.

Opening Day” is The Fly’s recurring series of stories on the latest initial public offerings, their performance, and upcoming IPOs.