Qualtrics International Inc.’s shares jumped more than 45% in their trading debut today after the company sold about 51.7 million shares in an initial public offering on Thursday night, raising north of $1.5 billion.

Qualtrics priced its IPO at $30 per share. The company, which is listed under the ticker symbol “XM,” is now trading above $43.

The current IPO funding haul of $1.5 billion could increase if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and the other financial institutions that managed the listing can together purchase more than 7 million additional Qualtrics shares at the $30 opening price, minus discounts and commissions.

Qualtrics’ path to the stock market hasn’t been as direct as that of some of the other enterprise technology firms that have listed their shares recently. The company had originally planned to stage an IPO in late 2018, but was acquired at the last moment by SAP SE. Qualtrics stated in its regulatory filing for the offering that SAP was expected to remain the controlling stakeholder following the stock sale.

Qualtrics provides a cloud-based platform that companies use to collect feedback from their various stakeholders. Human resources departments rely on Qualtrics to ask employees their opinions on topics such as the effectiveness of the new hire onboarding process. Product teams, meanwhile, use Qualtrics to measure customer satisfaction and find new market opportunities.

The company’s platform supports more than 12,000 organizations worldwide, including IBM Corp., BMW AG and other household names. About a 10th of those clients pay Qualtrics more than $100,000 annually. Across all customer accounts, the company disclosed in its IPO filing, revenue during the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2020 reached $723 million, up 36% from a year ago.

Qualtrics’ revenue accelerated significantly during the two years it was a wholly owned SAP subsidiary. Chief Executive Zig Serafin told Forbes on occasion of the company’s stock market debut today that it used the time to win deals in SAP’s massive enterprise customer base. That sales effort was clearly reflected in Qualtrics’ most recent annual financial figures.

The company stated in the IPO filing that “maintaining a strong relationship with SAP and its management team will be important to our success for at least as long as SAP remains a majority shareholder.”

Qualtrics also disclosed that it expects operating expenses to rise as it invests in growth initiatives. “We expect expenses to increase in the near term, particularly as we continue to make significant investments in research and development and technology infrastructure, expand our operations globally and develop new solutions and features,” the filing stated.

The increased spending is part of Qualtrics’ efforts to capture a bigger slice of its total addressable market, which it estimates was worth $60 billion in 2020.

Qualtrics’ strong IPO is a good sign for other enterprise software companies expected to go public this year. One of the companies on that list is robotic process automation provider UiPath Inc., which a recent Bloomberg report claimed could hold its IPO as soon as the first half of 2021.

Photo: Qualtrics