By Chibuike Oguh
(Reuters) -E-commerce firm ContextLogic Inc sold shares in its initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday at $24 apiece, the top of its target range, to raise $1.1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The IPO gives ContextLogic, which does business as Wish, a market capitalization of $14.1 billion. Wish had planned to sell 46 million shares within a targeted range of $22 and $24 per share.
Wish's IPO comes as the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in online shopping from customers complying with stay-at-home orders. The share offering will also be riding on the tech-fueled rally in U.S. stock markets that has led to blockbuster IPOs of companies such as Airbnb Inc, DoorDash Inc, and SnowFlake Inc.
Founded in 2010 by former Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) executive Peter Szulczewski and Yahoo veteran Danny Zhang, San-Francisco-based Wish has more than 100 million monthly active users worldwide, selling about 2 million products daily on its e-commerce platform, according to the company's website.
Wish reported revenue of $1.7 billion for nine months ended in September, up 32% from $1.3 billion last year. The company's net losses, however, widened to $176 million compared with $5 million last year.
Some of Wish's main investors include Yuri Milner's DST Global, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Formation8 Partners, GGV Capital, and private equity firm General Atlantic.
Wish shares are due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Wednesday under the symbol "Wish."
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), J.P.Morgan, and BofA Securities are the lead underwriters for Wish's listing.