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“This company is not ambitious – it is operational.”
Firefly Aerospace (Fly) CEO Jason Kim said this to me at Yahoo Finance while his company continued his transition ritual in the Nasdaq on Thursday. It felt so electric in the room, I asked Firefly’s employees to clap at the top of the interview (video above).
The share was opened for $ 70 per share and closed the session at $ 60.35 – an increase of 34% compared to its IPO price of $ 45. The market capitalization of the company at the end of the first trading day was $ 8.48 billion.
Last week Firefly said that it was planning to sell 16.2 million shares with a range of $ 35 to $ 39. A new legal submission on Monday came with a much higher range of $ 41 to $ 43. The company finally collected $ 868 million from the IPO after selling 19.3 million shares at $ 45.
I think Kim’s comment perfectly records why recent IPOs were enthusiastically embraced by investors. The early phase companies that come on the market are more mature. The companies are more complete. The leaders are better completed. (Kim told me off -camera that he is very ready for his first win.)
Firefly can still be an early stage without winning, but it is not only hot air without a substance. It is not a spac with a suspicious leader – going back to the flops from 2020. Kim is an air force veteran who has worked a lot of time at the satellite company Van Boeing.
His company is part of the commercial Lunar Payload Services program from NASA. The moon Lander Blue Ghost successfully hit the surface of the moon in March. The new reusable rocket from the company is expected to be launched somewhere in 2026 and join the already proven Alpha Rocket in the portfolio.
In his prospectus Firefly $ 1.1 billion in disadvantaged and mentions partnerships with Elon Musk’s SpaceX (Spax.PVT), Jeff Bezans’s Blue Origin, NASA, Northrop Grumman (NOC) and Space Force.
Another recent IPO that is more operational than inspiring?
Figma (Fig) shares were priced at $ 33 for his market debut on July 31 and finished the day at $ 115.50. The company makes software with which people can collaborate on slides and digital whiteboards, in addition to other bells and whistles.
The company has more than 13 million monthly users. The prospectus evokes that 1,000 customers pay it north of $ 100,000 a year to use the product. Important customers are Google (Google) and Microsoft (MSFT).
