10x Genomics, a US-based biotechnology instrument provider backed by internet and telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank, raised $390m in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market yesterday.
The company priced 10 million shares at $39.00 each, above the IPO’s $31 to $35 range. The underwriters have the 30-day option to buy another 1.5 million shares, which would boost its size to approximately $449m.
Founded in 2012, 10x produces instruments and software and that help researchers study biological systems and derive data that can then be analysed. It made a $14.5m net loss in the first six months of 2019 from $109m in revenue.
The IPO comes after $243m in funding, $85m of which came in a series D round featuring SoftBank, banking firm Wells Fargo’s Strategic Capital vehicle, financial services and investment group Fidelity, Meritech Capital and Paladin Capital that closed at a $1.28bn valuation in January 2019.
SoftBank also participated in the company’s $55m series C round in 2016, which also featured Fidelity, JS Capital Management and existing backers Venrock, Foresite Capital and Paladin Capital. 10x’s earlier investors include Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
The shares issued in the offering were class A shares, as opposed to the class B’s owned by 10x’s existing shareholders which give them far larger voting rights.
SoftBank’s stake in 10x was sized at under 5% pre-IPO. The company’s largest shareholder is Foresite Capital, which owns 18.3% of its class B shares, followed by Venrock (17%), Paladin Capital (11.5%) and Fidelity (11.3%).
JP Morgan Securities LLC, Goldman Sachs and BofA Merrill Lynch are lead joint book-running managers for the offering while Cowen is lead manager.
The company’s shares closed at $52.75 on their first day of trading yesterday and currently stand at $51.47 at time of publication, giving it a market cap of approximately $4.83bn.
