Trustpilot, the consumer reviews site joining the current rush of tech companies selling shares on the stock market, today announced it was pricing its float at the very top of its expected range at £1.08 billion.
The company will launch 161 million shares priced at 265p a share and they started trading conditionally today.
The IPO will raise £473 million for the company and comes just a day after Deliveroo priced its IPO at as much as £8.8 billion.
A flurry of technology companies have floated, or announced plans to float on the London market in recent months, with investors rushing to invest in the hope of seeing a repeat of The Hut Group’s strong share price gains since it floated last year.
The company was founded in 2007 by CEO Peter Muhlmann in his parents’ garage in Denmark as a side-project to his main ecommerce startup.
It quickly took off as online companies valued the kudos it gave them to have five star ratings by consumers.
The company runs on a free and paid-for subscription basis, offering companies the ability to use Trustpilot’s reviews in their marketing literature. They can also use Trustpilot’s reviews to improve their service to customers.
It currently has more than 19,500 subscribers paiing an average of $5600, it says, creating recurring revenue in 2020 of $119 million.
Unlike Deliveroo, it makes a profit, albeit only after interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $6.1 million, going by 2020 numbers.
Total revenues have increased from $64 million in 2018 to $102 million in 2020.
Trustpilot’s float will trigger a big payday for the European venture capital companies that have been funding it so far. These include Draper Esprit, Index Ventures, Northzone and Seed Capital, which had 67% of the company.
Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are are leading the IPO as joint sponsors with Berenberg and Danske Bank acting as joint bookrunners.
