附近上门

Mobile tech company 鈥檚 stock closed at $65.20 on its first day of trading, nearly 19 percent below its IPO price.

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The company鈥檚 stock opened at $70 on Thursday, around 13 percent below its IPO price of $80. AppLovin raised $2 billion through its IPO and was valued at more than $28 billion before its lackluster debut on Thursday.聽

AppLovin helps mobile apps grow their business by matching users to apps and helping developers monetize their apps.

President and CFO of AppLovin, , dismissed the stock鈥檚 performance on Thursday, saying the company is focused on its long-term value, rather than just its first day.

鈥淲e鈥檙e focused on creating equity value for the long term, not just the near-term trading,鈥� Chen said in an interview with 附近上门 News.

AppLovin is an interesting venture-backed company to go public, because it didn鈥檛 start out that way. The company, which was founded in 2011, initially wasn鈥檛 able to raise venture dollars, so it bootstrapped, according to a letter in the S-1 from CEO .

The company eventually raised a seed round in 2014 before bringing on investors including .

AppLovin was supposed to be acquired by Chinese private equity firm for $1.4 billion in 2016, but the deal didn鈥檛 materialize. Orient Hontai Capital then became an investor.

The company chose to go public now because of the growth it鈥檚 seen in the past year, and the large market it could tap into, Chen said. AppLovin reported around $1.45 billion in revenue in 2020, up from $994.1 million in 2019, according to the company鈥檚 S-1. The company opted to go public through a traditional IPO rather than a SPAC or direct listing because an IPO would give it access to the right investors and the time frame was advantageous, Chen said.

With technology that straddles the world of software and video game development, AppLovin is among a handful of gaming-related companies that have gone public in recent months, including , 听补苍诲 . But while AppLovin is known for gaming, its technology is 鈥渉orizontal in nature,鈥� according to Chen, so the company can expand into other areas.

鈥淲e think we can continue to use our software, really what we do fundamentally is to get app developers to match with users,鈥� Chen said.

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