Chicago startup Sprout Social is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq today after pricing its shares at $17, which was the midpoint of its range of $16 to $18.
The company sold 8.8 million shares, raising $150 million. The IPO price gives Sprout a fully diluted market cap of $894 million.
Sprout will trade under the ticker symbol “SPT.”
The company provides social media management software to businesses, and it has more than 23,000 customers across 100 countries. Sprout did $44.8 million in revenue in 2017 and $78.8 million in 2018. Through September 2019, Sprout reported $74.6 million in revenue. It generated net losses of $21.9 million in 2017 and $20.9 million in 2018.
The IPO is a win for early Sprout backer Lightbank, a Chicago VC firm founded by serial entrepreneurs Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell. The firm led Sprout's Series A round and was the first outside money in the company. Other Sprout backers include NEA, Goldman Sachs and Future Fund.
Tech IPOs have been a rarity in Chicago. Sprout is just the third local tech company to test the public markets since Grubhub went public five years ago. Motorola spin-off Cambium Networks went public earlier this year, and Enova was officially listed on the NYSE in November 2014.
