Monday.com celebrates its IPO at the Nasdaq, June 10, 2021.Source: Nasdaq
In Zoom’s IPO two years ago, Salesforce made a bundle by investing $100 million at the offer price and watching the stock soar out of the gate. Zoom learned a little something from that experience.
Zoom and Salesforce each purchased $75 million worth of stock in Israeli software company Monday.com, which debuted on the Nasdaq on Thursday. Monday.com, which provides cloud-based collaboration tools, didn’t have a Zoom-level pop, but the stock did jump 15% — rising from $155 to $178.87 — giving both investors a quick paper profit.
By the close of trading, Zoom and Salesforce’s stake had blossomed to $86.55 million, giving each a one-day gain of $11.55 million. Like Monday.com’s insiders, Zoom and Salesforce are subject to lock-up restrictions and can’t sell for 180 days.
For Salesforce, purchasing IPO shares has become another way for its venture arm to generate returns beyond traditional investments in start-ups and later-stage tech companies. In addition to investing in the offerings from Zoom and Monday.com, Salesforce put $250 million last year into Snowflake’s IPO, a stake that more than doubled in valued to $529 million on the database company’s first day of trading.
In 2020, Salesforce
