US-based laser technology developer nLight has raised $96m in an initial public offering that scored an exit for Samsung Ventures, a corporate venturing subsidiary of electronics producer Samsung.
The offering consisted of 6 million shares priced at $16 each, above its $13 to $15 range. The company’s stock opened at $23.00 on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq Global Market and closed at $25.01 on Friday, giving it a market capitalisation of just over $840m.
Founded in 2000, nLight supplies semiconductor and fibre lasers for use in manufacturing processes for the industrial, microfabrication, aerospace and defence industries. It generated a $1.8m profit in 2017 from almost $139m in revenue.
The company has raised about $175m in venture funding. It did not disclose when Samsung Ventures, a sister entity of nLight customers Philoptics and Samsung Display, invested, but it held a stake larger than 5% prior to the company’s $28.8m series G round in April 2017.
However, Samsung Ventures was not, at the time of the offering, among nLight’s main shareholders, the largest of which is Menlo Ventures, whose 21.5% stake was diluted to 17.7% in the IPO.
The company’s other notable investors are Oak Investment Partners (a 16.5% share post-IPO), Mohr Davidow Ventures (15.5%), Wellington Management (9.9% through a vehicle called Hadley Harbor Master Investors) and Greenover Group (4.8%).
Lead book-running managers Stifel and Raymond James and co-managers Needham & Company, Canaccord Genuity and DA Davidson have a 30-day option to buy a further 900,000 shares, which would boost the IPO to more than $110m.
– Image courtesy of nLight, Inc.