CarGurus, a Cambridge, Mass.-based online car research and shopping platform led by TripAdvisor co-founder Langley Steinert, raised $150 million in its IPO.
Why it's a big deal: Because this is a profitable, East Coast tech issuer valued at more than $1 billion — despite being bootstrapped for its first decade of existence. Oh, and then it raised pre-IPO funding from mutual funds that (gasp) led to an actual IPO. It's the old normal.
Deal details: The company priced 9.4 million shares at $16 per share (above $13-$15 range), for an initial market cap of around $1.68 billion. It will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol CARG, while Goldman Sachs was listed as left-lead underwriter. GarGurus reports $8.6 million of net income on $143 million in revenue for the first half of 2017, and lists pre-IPO shareholders like Fidelity and T. Rowe Price.
Bottom line: CarGurus has somehow kept a low profile despite reporting 23 million unique monthly users, but this IPO could make it more of a known commodity in tech and business circles.
