Video game development platform and technology firm Unity Software completed its initial public offering Friday and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The Unity game engine developer raised $1.3B USD in the offering. The company sold 25M shares, which represent roughly 9.49% of the company’s total outstanding shares after the offering, at a price of $52 per share in the initial offering. The offering pricing put Unity Software’s market capitalization at $13.7B based on 263,366,733 outstanding shares.
The pricing exceeded Unity’s initial price range marketed to potential investors. The company’s first price range communicated last week ranged from $34 to $42 per share, which would have valued the company at a range of $8.95B to $11.1B. On Wednesday, Unity increased the marketed price range to a per share price between $44 and $48 before selling to investors bidding $52 per share or more. Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse served as lead underwriters for the offering, while other major underwriters included BofA Securities and Barclays.
The stock started trading on the NYSE today at 11:55 a.m. ET, opening at a share price of $75, up 44.2% from the $52 per share that Unity raised on Thursday, temporarily increasing Unity Software’s market capitalization at $19.75B. After the first two hours of trading, the stock’s highest share price achieved was $76.79, momentarily peaking Unity’s market capitalization at more than $20B. With the market opening price of $75, Unity’s market capitalization surpassed the $17.3B post-money equity valuation of its direct game engine competitor, Unreal Engine maker Epic Games. (At the time of the writing—Sept. 18, 2:30 pm ET—Unity’s stock price was $68.57 resulting in a temporary market capitalization of roughly $18.1B.)
While close to a typical IPO process, Unity’s IPO differed from the traditional process. Instead of underwriters and major investors pricing its shares, Unity solicited priced investor bids through an online system managed by Goldman Sachs. This process resulted in Unity pricing its offering above its expected range, manually allocating shares to all investors that had expressed interest at or above the $52 level. Any investors who submitted bids below $52 per share did not receive shares.
San Francisco-based Unity Software, which was founded in 2004 in Denmark as Over the Edge Entertainment, is best known for its Unity game engine that developers use to create game graphics. The game engine is a direct competitor to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine game engine, which is used by several popular esports games such as Epic Games’ battle royale Fortnite and Riot Games’ first-person shooter Valorant.
According to the company’s IPO prospectus, Unity estimates more than 50% of mobile games, PC games, and console games combined are made with Unity. This list of games includes popular esports titles such as Call of Duty: Mobile, Garena Free Fire, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Hearthstone, NASCAR Heat 5, and Legends of Runeterra. Also, the announced League of Legends mobile version League of Legends: Wild Rift and the recent hit game Fall Guys are built with the Unity game engine.
In 2019, Unity generated a net loss of $163.2M on revenues of $541.8M, which grew 42% from $380.8M during the previous year, while the net loss increased from a net loss of $131.6M in 2018. During the first half of 2020, the company’s net loss decreased year-over-year to $54.1M from $67.1M in H1 2019.
Also in its IPO prospectus, Unity revealed that it intends to use the IPO’s net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures. The company also mentions possible acquisitions and strategic investments as a potential use of the proceeds. Additionally, a portion of the net proceeds will be used to repay $125M of outstanding debt.
Prior to the IPO, Sequoia Capital and Silver Lake were the largest investors in Unity, with Sequoia owning more than 24% of the company’s outstanding shares.
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