Daniel Loeb-backed SentinelOne raises over $1 billion in upsized U.S. IPO

[June 30, 2021]  (Reuters) -SentinelOne Inc, a cybersecurity firm backed by billionaire investor Daniel Loeb's hedge fund Third Point, raised about $1.23 billion through an upsized U.S. initial public offering on Wednesday, giving it a valuation of roughly $8.87 billion.

The company sold 35 million shares priced at $35 per share. It had earlier planned to sell 32 million shares priced between $31 and $32 per share.

SentinelOne said it also sold around 1.43 million shares of its Class A common stock in a private placement concurrent to the public offering to certain existing shareholders at the IPO price.

Demand for cybersecurity software has risen since last year as organizations across the globe moved to a work-from-home environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, driving the need for more cloud technology software along with appropriate security measures.

SentinelOne protects laptops and mobile phones from security breaches by using artificial intelligence technology to identify unusual behavior in enterprise networks.

The Mountain View, California-based company raised $267 million from venture capital firms Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital at a valuation of more than $3 billion in November, almost three times of what it was valued at in February last year.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were the lead underwriters for the offering.

(Reporting by Sohini Podder in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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