Box Shares Rise 65 Percent in First Day of Trading

Cloud storage and collaboration company Box debuted for trading as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange this morning, capping a 10-month process during which the offering was delayed at least twice.

Box shares closed at $23.15 a share on the New York Stock Exchange, up more than 65 percent from the $14 price it announced late Thursday. The shares opened for trading at $20.20 and rose during the session to as high as $24.73. The closing price gave it a market capitalization just shy of $2.8 billion. Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan led the process.

Box raised $175 million in the offering, which initially valued the firm at $1.7 billion. Given the rise in its share price, it might have raised more by pricing higher. In an interview with Re/code at the NYSE in New York, CEO and founder Aaron Levie said he was satisfied with the IPO process and with the amount of capital raised.

“The market is a very interesting place, and we’re happy with how it turned out,” he said. “There’s not a single regret.”

On top of the capital raised in today’s offering, Box still has most of the cash from a $150 million investment it raised in July from the private equity firm TPG and hedge fund Coatue Management “From a capital standpoint we feel like we’re in a very strong position,” Levie said.

Box’s next act as a public company will be to close its 2015 fiscal year on Jan. 31. It will report quarterly and annual results sometime in early March.

Box’s largest shareholder is the venture capital fund Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which led its $1.5 million A-round in 2006, and after the offering will own a stake in the company of more than 19 percent, worth more than $540 million at Friday’s price late in the trading session. Levie owns 3.4 percent of the shares, a stake worth nearly $97 million.

Other notable shareholders include U.S. Venture Partners with a 10 percent stake, Coatue Management with an eight percent stake, and the private equity firm General Atlantic, which owns about seven percent.

On Twitter Levie thanked Box’s customers and employees.

https://twitter.com/levie/status/558686491267047424

He also received congratulatory tweets from numerous tech execs including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

https://twitter.com/levie/status/558673240743477251

https://twitter.com/levie/status/558718738758127616

Here’s Levie talking about the IPO on CNBC.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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