Circle, one of the world’s largest issuers of USDC, is a stubcoin pinned to US dollars, ending its first trading day as a public company at $83.23 per share.
The IPO POP shows national investors’ interest in cryptocurrencies and ridiculous currencies, particularly amid the Trump administration’s supportive stance on cryptocurrencies.
A massive surge in Circle’s first-day trading could encourage institutional investors to raise IPO prices on future lists. The imminent IPOs include Omada Health, which is priced Thursday, and Klarna, a fintech that is scheduled to list next week.
The company’s IPO stock price set its initial market value at $6.1 billion. This is the last private market valuation of the $7.7 billion circle since 2021 when the company raised a $400 million Series F, according to Pitchbook data.
But the big pop cleaned it up, and some. The circle’s market capitalization (excluding employee options) was $16.7 billion by the end of the transaction. The company has raised about $1.1 billion.
Circle is on the growth list of companies whose IPOs are below private market highs. This includes recent “downround” offerings from Health Tech Hinge, contractor platform ServiceTitan, and social network Reddit. So it won’t discourage startups looking for signs that this is the right time to be published.
Circle’s successful IPO comes three years after Circle attempts to publish it previously. The Stablecoin publisher had plans to combine it with SPAC in 2022 at a $9 billion valuation.
The company’s largest external shareholder is the general catalyst, which is IDG Capital, which held approximately 8.9% of all shares prior to the offering and 8.8% of all shares. Other key venture investors include Accel, Breyer Capital and Oak Investment Partners, according to S-1.
