UiPath is up 17% in its NYSE debut after one of the best software IPOs ever

UiPath rose 17% on the company’s debut on Wednesday after the software vendor and its investors invested $ 1.34 billion in the company’s IPO. The stock opened at a price of $ 65.50.

A company whose software helps companies automate repetitive tasks, shares sold On Tuesday night at a price of $ 56, above the expected price range of $ 52 to $ 54. At a starting price, UiPath had a market value of $ 34 billion.

If policyholders buy their allotted shares, UiPath’s offering will be the third-largest ever for a U.S. software company, behind only a cloud database vendor Snowflake, which raised $ 3.9 billion in September, and Qualtrics, which withdrew $ 1.78 billion in January after splitting from SAP. UiPath is entering the market at a time of rapid growth, as companies from healthcare to energy producers are looking for ways to automate business in their financial, human resources and legal departments.

Last year, revenue rose 81% to $ 607.6 million, and the company’s loss fell to $ 92.4 million from $ 519.9 million in 2019. UiPath’s gross margin of 89% is among the largest in software.

Although UiPath joins a long list of high-growth cloud software companies to hit the market in the last three years, its debut comes amid a change in investor sentiment. After more than doubling in value last year, WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, consisting of 58 publicly traded cloud software vendors, fell 6.7% this year, while the Dow Jones industry average rose 11%, according to a conclusion on Tuesday.

One of the biggest strengths of UiPath is its ability to retain customers and encourage them to increase consumption over time. In its last fiscal year, UiPath reported a net revenue retention of 145%, meaning that the average existing customer increased spending by 45% over the previous year.

UiPath, which ranked 50th CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list for 2020. was founded in 2005 in Romania by Daniel Dines, a former Microsoft engineer. Dines moved UiPath to the U.S. about ten years later and established headquarters in New York City. Approximately one quarter of the 2,863 full-time employees are based in Bucharest, Romania.

The stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “PATH”. Dines controls 88% of the voting shares and is the largest stakeholder, with over 110 million shares valued at $ 6.2 billion, based on the IPO price and including some shares sold in the offering.

WATCH: UiPath CEO Daniel Dines on his public debut