TubeMogul issued its follow-on stock price late Wednesday in a secondary deal worth $82.9 million. The video ad platform will return about $55 million in primary capital to the company by selling 3.5 million shares at a rate of $15.75 a share.
The share price is about twice the $7 rate it commanded at its IPO last July and slightly above its original target price of $11-$13 per share.
The company wants to make it easier for large investors to own a part of TubeMogul.
“This was [our] signaling to the market that we’re going to manage an orderly transition of venture capital shares to the public market and, in doing so, we’ve increased our total availability of stock,” CEO Brett Wilson told AdExchanger.
Individual early-stage investors including Wilson will sell an additional 1.7 million in secondary shares, representing about $27.9 million. TubeMogul had $36.9 million cash in reserve at the end of Q1.
The company will also grant deal underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to 789,486 additional shares of common stock.
“For me personally, after a challenged IPO a year ago, I feel like we really finished what we started,” Wilson said. “We did exactly what we told investors we’d do since last July and we meaningfully improved the business in just a year.”
Similar to other ad tech companies, TubeMogul’s stock has been battered by the public market at times. Its stock was down nearly 9% when it initially filed its S-1 for the follow-on offering June 1. It seemed to reclaim its momentum and climbed 7.9% last week when Comcast announced its planned acquisition of TV ad tech company Visible World.
Wilson said the company’s secondary filing reinforces its independent status, adding additional financing will keep it nimble while it explores additional growth opportunities.
“We’re not spending more, there’s no M&A [planned] – this was an opportunistic [move] to strengthen our balance sheet, because so much of the company is owned by venture capitalists,” he said.
Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research noted the follow-on offering sustains Tube’s independent status, though it doesn’t necessarily discount external interest: “They’re better positioned now if a larger company thought they’d serve as a strategic acquisition choice.”
