Copyright Business Insider
After years of a rebrand, delayed IPOs, and pandemic whiplash, Navan's early investors are finally getting their reward. The corporate travel and expense management platform debuted on the Nasdaq on Thursday at $25 per share, in the middle of its expected range, raising $923 million at a $6.2 billion valuation. It's the largest company to test the IPO waters during the government shutdown. The shutdown has prompted some other companies to delay their public listings, including consumer group Unilever's spinoff of its Magnum Ice Cream unit. Navan is taking advantage of a new exception by the Securities and Exchange Commission, however — shortly after the IPO market came to a sudden halt earlier this month, the SEC said new listings would automatically go into effect without SEC review 20 days after companies set an IPO price range. That bet may be pressuring the company's stock, which opened on Thursday below its IPO price at $22 per share and continued to trade down throughout the day, closing at $20 per share. Navan has also faced some investor concerns that it's not yet profitable. Navan's $6.2 billion IPO valuation is a step down from its all-time high at $9.2 billion in 2022, continuing this year's trend of down round IPOs. Navan, which was formerly known as Trip Actions, has faced several setbacks since its founding. The company raised its first round of funding in 2015 at a $4.5 million valuation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Group 11, Oren Zeev, Raaid Hossain, and Zeev Ventures. By early 2020, Navan was recording revenue of around $100 million. However, that figure plummeted to nearly zero during the COVID-19 pandemic. Navan staged a rapid comeback, gaining enough momentum to file confidential paperwork to go public in 2023 under its former name, TripActions. But the IPO market soon ground to a halt, and investors had to wait two more years for a payday. Now they can finally celebrate. "I'm really happy to return capital to the investors," said Dovi Frances, founding partner of Group 11, whose initial investment came from its first institutional fund. That investment will return the entire fund three times over, the sort of early bet that can define a venture capitalist's reputation for picking early winners. "For the first time in my career, fundraising will no longer be an issue," Frances said. We used Navan's share price at Thursday's market close, $20, to determine the value of its major shareholders' and board members' stakes after the listing. Since Navan opened down from its IPO price, we excluded additional shares issued by the company that Navan's underwriters could sell to help balance IPO demand. Here's what those stakes are worth after Navan's IPO.
