Will Palantir be the first pandemic direct listing?
Bulwark cash. That seems to be the mantra for Silicon Valley startups amid the economic uncertainty right now.
So it’s interesting to see Palantir reportedly planning to go public via a direct listing, a method that does not raise additional capital, but does offer a way for existing shareholders to sell their stock. According to Bloomberg, sources say that Palantir is preparing for a direct listing in late September.
As investors scrambled to make sense of the pandemic early on, direct listings seemed dicier as companies sought to shore up funding. But the funding environment has held up stronger than anticipated. Financing continues to flow, particularly among late-stage startups in private markets, while stock markets are roaring back to nearly all-time highs, in part buoyed by the government’s stimulus package.
Rather than raising in a public offering, Palantir revealed in early July that it had raised roughly $550 million of a planned $961 million in private markets, including a $500 million investment from Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings.
The much-anticipated listing also comes at a time when recent IPOs have soared in first-day trading—much to the chagrin of investors like Bill Gurley, who see the first-day pop as underpricing on the part of bankers, and have championed the direct listing instead.
Kamala Harris is a breath of relief for Big Tech: Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his Democratic running mate earlier this week in a move that angered the more left-wing members of the party—but could usher in popularity and funding from Big Tech for Biden. Harris has often taken a more moderate line when it comes to the tech giants, many of which operate in her home state, California.
“The reality is that Harris is infinitely preferable to the tech industry than Biden’s other choices, as well as the Trump Administration, which has attacked Silicon Valley relentlessly,” writes my colleague, Jeff John Roberts. Read more.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com