*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.
Adam Coons, chief portfolio manager of Winthrop Capital Management, joined Cheddar News to discuss Wednesday's market session amid weak job market data and what lies ahead in the near-term future.
In a clash of fast casual titans, Chipotle Mexican Grill is filing a lawsuit against Sweetgreen for trademark infringement. The salad purveyor recently released a meal offering called "Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl," which Chipotle said is being marketed in a "very similar" way as its own products and includes many of the same ingredients.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell this week as the labor market continues to hold up in the face of the Federal Reserve aggressive campaign to cool the economy and bring down inflation.
Wall Street is drifting amid mixed trading Thursday, threatening to send the S&P 500 to its first losing week in the last four following some discouraging reports on the economy.
The upcoming trial in a voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News for airing false allegations of vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election will not include testimony about the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst with Bankrate.com, joined Cheddar News to provide guidance on how to raise your credit score, especially for would-be homebuyers.
Chipotle filed a lawsuit in California federal court against Sweetgreen over the salad chain's chicken burrito bowl, claiming infringement for using the word "chipotle" in the name.
