Vancouver-based ZoomInfo raises $934 million in IPO

ZoomInfo Technologies, based in Vancouver, Clark County, found major success in its initial public offering of stock on Thursday, raising $934 million from investors.

Trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol ZI, the marketing information firm raised almost twice as much capital as it had expected when it announced in November that it would go public. Thursday’s IPO valued the company at about $8 billion, making it the highest-valued company in Clark County.

ZoomInfo offered 44.5 million shares valued at $21, which was above the expected value range when it originally filed. By the market’s closing, the stock value shot up to $34.

“I feel really good about the IPO,” co-founder and CEO Henry Schuck said in a Thursday interview with The Columbian. “I feel even better about the company we built. If we can continue on the foundation we’ve built, we can be a successful foundation stock for our shareholders.”

Instead of the usual tradition of ringing the market’s opening bell in person, because of the pandemic the company held a livestream virtual bell ringing, which showed employees on the Nasdaq seven-story tower in Times Square.

“You expect to be in New York City at the Nasdaq building with the 60 people who helped you build the company,” he said. “We took an event that 60 people would be part of and made it an event that all 1,300 employees could be a part of.”

Schuck founded the company in 2007 under the name DiscoverOrg, offering data on companies to other companies to be used in marketing. In 2019, it acquired Zoom Information and was rebranded as ZoomInfo.

The company announced its IPO plans in November. In February, it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and was looking to raise up to $500 million. It joins a handful of publicly traded companies headquartered in Clark County, including nLIGHT, Barrett Business Services and Nautilus.

ZoomInfo is experiencing fast growth with a reported revenue of $224.7 million last year, up from $106.5 million in 2018.

About 15,000 companies and 200,000 sellers and marketers are clients of ZoomInfo, Shuck said. ZoomInfo’s product helped an event-tent-making company survive during the pandemic and even exceed its revenue records. The Michigan-based tent company, TentCraft, was able to use ZoomInfo’s data to find a new client base of hospitals from around the country to buy its tents.

The strong IPO will help ZoomInfo recruit employees to the Vancouver area, Schuck said, and it could help add to the roughly 600 employees working in downtown Vancouver.

“It gives our company a bigger brand name and voice,” he said. “This is a business that people in Vancouver should be really proud of.”