Wish falls as much as 16% below IPO price in trading debut after raising $1.1 billion

• Wish parent company ContextLogic fell as much as 14% in its trading debut on Wednesday, giving the e-commerce company a market valuation of about $15 billion.
• The company raised $1.1 billion when it priced its IPO at $24 per share, giving it an initial market valuation of $17 billion on a fully diluted basis.
• An IPO frenzy has quickly materialized in the fourth quarter of 2020, given the eye-popping surge in recent trading debuts for Airbnb, DoorDash, and C3.ai. 
• Watch Wish trade live here.

Wish parent company ContextLogic fell 5% at the open of its trading debut on Wednesday, giving the e-commerce company a market valuation of about $15 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The stock opened at $22.75 and hit an intraday low of $20.05, representing a decline of 16% from its initial public offering price of $24.

Wish priced its IPO at $24 per share, raising $1.1 billion in proceeds at a valuation of $17 billion. That’s well ahead of the company’s last fundraising round as a private company in August 2019, when the firm raised $300 million at a valuation of $11 billion.

Wish was created by former Google engineer Piotr Szulczewski. The e-commerce platform relies on a personalized visual browsing experience rather than the traditional search and go shopping habits facilitated by a search bar.

Wish’s catalog has grown to more than 150 million items, and it sells nearly 2 million items per day, according to its S-1 filing. The company did $1.9 billion in revenue in 2019 and is not yet profitable.

Wish’s IPO debut and subsequent decline is the opposite of high flying public debuts this quarter. Last week, Airbnb, DoorDash and C3.ai posted substantial gains of 113%, 86% and 174%, respectively. And in September, Snowflake completed the largest software-technology IPO in history and has been on a tear since its debut.

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