E-commerce biz ChannelAdvisor stock soars 40% in IPO debut

Following the lead of other recent tech-focused IPOs, e-commerce software business ChannelAdvisor‘s shares popped almost 40 percent in its first day of trading as a public company.

ChannelAdvisor, based in Morrisville, N.C., was founded in 2001 and offers a cloud-based e-commerce platform that helps retailers easily list items on Amazon, Google, eBay, Bing, Groupon, and more and keep their data unified and up to date. The company had more than 1,900 customers worldwide at the end of 2012. And in 2012 alone its customers processed more than $3.5 billion in gross merchandise value through the platform.

The company filed for its IPO back in April. Its initial public offering of 5.8 million shares was priced last night at $14 a share, the high end of its pricing range. As of this writing, shares are hovering at about $19.50, a 39 percent bump over the IPO price.

“Twelve years ago, my co-founder Aris [Buinevicius] and I started ChannelAdvisor with the mission to help retailers grow and optimize their e-commerce channels,” CEO Scot Wingo said in a statement. “And while we knew e-commerce had potential way back in 2001, we had no idea how big e-commerce — and our mission — would become.”

ChannelAdvisor is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ECOM.” Prior to today, ChannelAdvisor raised $75 million in venture capital funding from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Advanced Technology Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and eBay.

Check out the video below for more on the company.