(March 17) Olo opens for trading at $31.82 up 27% from IPO price.
Olo Inc., which makes online-ordering technology for restaurants, is set to go public Wednesday as it seeks to benefit from an on-demand boom that was helped further along by the coronavirus pandemic.
The New York-based company priced its initial public offering at $25 a share late Tuesday, much higher than its original target of $16 to $18 a share, which it raised to $20 to $22 a share Monday. It is offering 18 million shares and could raise up to $450 million at a valuation of $3.6 billion.
The company’s stock will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OLO, .
Olo, which was founded in 2005 and is short for “online ordering,” powers 1.8 million orders a day for well-known restaurant chains such as Denny’s, the Cheesecake Factory, Shake Shack and more, as well as Peet’s Coffee, Jamba Juice and others. The company’s revenue surged 94% in 2020 year over year, it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“As consumers have become accustomed to the immediate convenience of on-demand commerce, they are demanding the same digital experience from restaurants, placing significant pressure on restaurants to deploy solutions,” Olo said. “This demand has only accelerated since the onset of COVID-19, as on-demand commerce has become a necessity for the majority of restaurants.”
Olo said that as of Dec. 31, it had about 400 brand partners and its technology — which includes digital ordering and enabling delivery — was being used at more than 64,000 locations.
The company reported net income of $3.1 million on revenue of $98.4 million last year, compared with a net loss of $8.3 million on revenue of $50.7 million in 2019.
Olo raised less than $100 million since its inception, it said, including from investors such as The Raine Group, Tiger Global Management and RRE Ventures.
The IPO will be led by Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, two of eight underwriters listed in the filing.