Pinterest, Zoom shares surge in market debuts, signalling renewed investor appetite for tech IPOs

Shares of Pinterest surged almost 30 per cent in the company’s stock market debut on Thursday, valuing the online scrapbook company at around US$16 billion and signalling investor appetite for new tech listings.

That bodes well for the US IPO market as ride-hailing company Uber Technologies prepares for its highly anticipated debut, particularly with shares in smaller rival Lyft floundering below their March offering price.

“All of the gyrations that you read about in the press and the drama that you read about in other cases, we can certainly fall victim to a lot of those things if we are distracted by the news cycle or things that are short-term by nature,” Pinterest Chief Financial Officer Todd Morgenfeld said.

“But we’re focused on building the best version of Pinterest we can over the next several years.”

Pinterest shares opened at US$23.75, well above the US$19 they were priced at, and closed at US$24.40

Zoom Video Communications Inc shares also surged in the US video conferencing company’s first day of trading on Thursday, closing 72 per cent above their IPO price of US$36.

“It is a very favourable market at the moment,” Zoom Chief Financial Officer Kelly Steckelberg said in an interview. “Investors really see the opportunity for ‘software as a service’ companies.”