Hootsuite Eyes Sooner-Than-Expected IPO Following Shopify's Big Day

Shares of

SHOPIFY INC NPV SUB A

SHOP

were surging more than 12 percent Friday morning, trading near the $30 per share mark. Shopify, a Canadian commerce company that develops computer software for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems began trading on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time on Thursday. The company is a success story as it started off as a struggling online snowboard store and become a leading e-commerce platform serving 165,000 merchants. After pricing its IPO at $17, shares opened for trading at $28 on Thursday. According to Reuters, the successful initial public offering could prompt Hootsuite, another Canadian-based startup to explore an initial public offering sooner rather than later. Hootsuite sells software to manage social media to companies and organizations. The company's Chief Executive Officer Ryan Holmes said that investor enthusiasm for Shopify's launch bolsters their plans. "I've talked about 18 to 24 months, but I'm very bullish given the success that Shopify has had, and maybe we will want to speed that up a little bit," Holmes

said at the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association's annual conference in Vancouver. Bloomberg also cited Tom Liston, a managing partner at Difference Capital, an investment firm that holds stakes in nine "IPO-ready" Canadian companies, including Hootsuite. "It's going to prompt more of them to consider that as an option and maybe accelerate plans to go public," Liston said of the impact of the Shopify IPO on Canada's tech industry. Holmes concluded that he is "not in a rush" to file for an initial public offering, but "we are moving closer to that."

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

25% Off Benzinga's Most Powerful Trading Tools

-

-

-

-

-

-

-