Klaviyo rises 9% in muted NYSE debut after software vendor priced IPO at $30 a share

Klaviyo shares rose 9.2% in their New York Stock Exchange debut Wednesday after the marketing automation company held the first notable IPO for a U.S. venture-backed software company since late 2021.

The stock closed at $32.76, declining throughout the day after opening at $36.75.

Klaviyo priced 19.2 million shares late Tuesday at $30 a piece, valuing the company at just over $9 billion on a fully diluted basis. Of those shares, 11.5 million were sold by the company, resulting in $345 million in cash added to the balance sheet. Klaviyo was valued at $9.5 billion in a private financing round in 2021.

The listing, under the ticker symbol “KVYO,” comes a day after grocery delivery company Instacart hit the Nasdaq and saw its stock close up 12% following an initial 40% pop. Instacart and Klaviyo are trying to crack open a tech IPO market that’s been virtually shuttered for 21 months. Chip designer Arm went public last week, but that company is based in the U.K. and controlled by Japan’s SoftBank.

The last venture-backed software companies to hold initial public offerings in the U.S. were HashiCorp and Samsara, which both debuted in December 2021, when the Nasdaq was near its peak and investors were paying a premium for growth stocks. Inflation spiked and interest rates rose in 2022, leading to a turn away from risk and the worst year for tech stocks since the 2008 financial crisis.

The Nasdaq has rebounded this year, but less mature and unprofitable businesses are still valued well below their levels from two years ago. Instacart closed Tuesday with a valuation of just over $11 billion, down from $39 billion at its height, and the stock fell 11% on its second day of trading, wiping out almost all of the initial…