A rare Australian unicorn has just graduated to the ASX, with Siteminder Limited (ASX: SDR) shares commencing trading on Monday.
The stock can be bought and sold on a deferred settlement basis until normal trading begins on Wednesday morning.
SiteMinder operates a global hotel e-commerce platform. The Sydney company — which was a 'unicorn' because it was privately owned with a valuation exceeding $1 billion — claims it currently has 32,000 hotels in 150 countries selling, marketing and managing their business on the system.
The initial public offer, priced at $5.06 per share, gave the company a market valuation of $1.36 billion.
The stock was in hot demand in its first moments on market, rocketing up 35% to hit $6.85 at the time of writing.
Chief executive Sankar Narayan thanked his staff, customers, partners and investors for the 15-year journey thus far.
"Today serves as yet another reminder that the world's innovators and market leaders can emerge from Australia," he said.
"I am thrilled with the extremely high quality of shareholders who have joined us for our journey ahead. These include many of the biggest and most knowledgeable global and Australian giants in the investment world."
SiteMinders' big-name backers add to their holdings
One of the long-term investors in SiteMinder is fellow ASX company Bailador Technology Investments Ltd (ASX: BTI), which held onto its "substantial" stake through the IPO.
Existing investors AustralianSuper, Ellerston Capital, Fidelity International, Pendal Group and Washington H Soul Pattinson and Co Ltd (ASX: SOL) added to their holdings.
As the depressive effects of COVID-19 on the tourism industry start to lift, Narayan had high hopes for his platform.
"The global hotel industry has experienced evolution like never before in recent times," he said.
"The need for technology like SiteMinder's hotel commerce platform is of substantial relevance as hotels have had to digitally transform with haste, while adjusting to their customers' changing needs and behaviours."
SiteMinder raked in $101 million in the 2021 financial year, and claimed a total annual recurring revenue of $104.9 million as of June 2021.
The business is still definitely in the growth stage though, reporting a $121.8 million statutory net loss after tax for the last financial year.
