Special purpose acquisition companies have been hot this year, but the traditional initial public offering is closing out the year even stronger. Performance of traditional IPOs has outpaced SPACs throughout the fourth quarter, and this month is anticipated to be the biggest December on record for IPOs, according to Bloomberg.
All of this shows that while SPACs are becoming a more common route to going public, the IPO is not going away anytime soon. That was especially evident this week as Airbnb and DoorDash had public debuts that smashed expectations.
Airbnb debuted Thursday at $146 per share, a nearly 115% surge above its $68 offering price. The vacation rental company now has a $101 billion valuation, the largest-ever first-day pop of any U.S. IPO that has raised over $1 billion.
On Wednesday, DoorDash opened at $182 per share, far exceeding the IPO price of $102. This pop means that DoorDash – which raised $3.37 billion – joins Airbnb as one of the top IPOs of 2020, along with Snowflake and ZoomInfo, which had 104% and 90% pops upon their IPOs, respectively.