British cybersecurity company Darktrace Plc announced plans for an initial public offering in London, adding to a surge in U.K. listings even after Deliveroo Holdings Plc flopped in its market debut. The company will sell new shares to fund product development, and some existing investors also will offer stock, Darktrace said in a statement Monday. Darktrace and shareholders plan to sell at least 20% of the company’s equity, and the stock will trade on the London Stock Exchange’s premium market and be eligible for FTSE’s benchmark stock indexes, according to the statement.
IPO proceeds in London total $9.9 billion this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, on par with 2019 and closing in on the 2020 total of $11.6 billion. Deliveroo, which raised 1.5 billion pounds ($2.1 billion) in its listing March 31, has slumped 35% since it began trading, hit by investor concerns about its gig-economy business model and its dual-class share structure.
Darktrace has been putting the pieces in place since at least late 2019 for a public offering. The company was founded in 2013 by veterans of U.S. and British intelligence agencies and mathematicians from the University of Cambridge. Its technology uses artificial intelligence to learn how organizations work and employees communicate to detect irregularities and wall off cyberattacks to prevent them from spreading.
Source: BNN Bloomberg
By Phil Serafino and Amy Thomson
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