*By Carlo Versano*
Shares of SurveyMonkey's parent company SVMK ($SVMK) jumped more than 50 percent in their market debut Wednesday.
The stock opened at $18.75, well above the IPO price of $12, which was already higher than the target range.
It's just the latest sign of strong investor demand for new tech offerings ー SVMK also sold a greater-than-expected 15 million shares in the IPO.
The 20-year old online polling company, part of the original dot-com rush, hopes to ride the wave of strong tech IPOs from the likes of Eventbrite ($EB), Farfetch ($FTCH), and Sonos ($SONO).
"It seems like investors really can't get enough of these IPOs," said the Wall Street Journal's Maureen Farrell.
Farrell has been following the SurveyMonkey road show and told Cheddar Wednesday "there was a ton of excitement," highlighted by a $40 million capital raise from Salesforce Ventures, which also invested in Dropbox ($DBX) in that company's March IPO.
That was "another stamp of approval from the industry," Farrell said.
SurveyMonkey was a pioneer of the "Freemium" model. The company said it had 16 million active users as of June, with 600,000 paying for the premium service. The company is not yet profitable, though ー like with many new tech companies ー that fact has not slowed interest.
The company is also a natural acquisition target, according to Farrell. Cloud computing companies like Oracle ($ORCL) and Salesforce ($CRM) would be obvious suitors, with the latter already showing its interest.
Among SurveyMonkey's largest shareholders is Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who inherited a 10 percent stake when her husband, former SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg, passed away unexpectedly in 2015. Sandberg has said she will donate the entirety of her shares to The Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation.
Stepping up a feud with Washington over technology and security, China's government on Sunday told users of computer equipment deemed sensitive to stop buying products from the biggest U.S. memory chipmaker, Micron Technology Inc.
Stocks are moving tentatively Monday, as Wall Street waits to see whether a pivotal meeting in the afternoon will help the U.S. government avoid a potentially disastrous default on its debt.
Scores of Boston University students turned their backs on the head of one of Hollywood's biggest studios, and some shouted “pay your writers,” as he gave the school's commencement address Sunday in a stadium where protesters supporting the Hollywood writers' strike picketed outside.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking that a federal judge be disqualified from the First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney against the Florida governor and his appointees, claiming the jurist's prior statements in other cases have raised questions about his impartiality on the state's efforts to take over Disney World's governing body.
Ford CEO Jim Farley says the company will stop competing in over-served market segments and instead will place big bets on connected vehicles and digital services. The days of Ford being all things to all people are over, Farley said at the company's capital markets day event Monday.
The European Union slapped Meta with a record $1.3 billion privacy fine Monday and ordered it to stop transferring users personal information across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decadelong case sparked by U.S. cybersnooping fears.
Joanne Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Mycocycle Inc., joined Cheddar News to discuss how her company uses mushrooms to decarbonize construction waste. "Mycocycle was started to address the waste mismanagement issue we have," she said. "Globally, we've got overflowing landfills that are creating human and environmental health issues."
