After making its debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange on November 18, trading under the symbol ‘CVO,’ Québec City-based Coveo raised $215 million CAD on November 24 from its initial public offering (IPO). The IPO consisted of 14.3 million shares priced at $15 each.
The offering was made through a syndicate of underwriters led by BMO Capital Markets, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets and UBS Investment Bank, as joint bookrunners, and Canaccord Genuity Corp., Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., National Bank Financial Inc., Scotiabank, TD Securities Inc. and Ramirez & Co., Inc.
Coveo also offered an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 2,151,000 shares at the offering price. If exercised in full, the over-allotment would bring in gross proceeds of $247.3 million. The over-allotment is open for a period of 30 days following the IPO.
Launched in August 2004 under the name Copernic Business Solutions Inc., the startup initially offered SaaS solutions in the advanced search engines market. In October of the same year, the company officially changed its name to Coveo.
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Coveo first filed to go public on November 3, and in its prospectus company chair and CEO Louis Têtu said businesses operating digitally is not enough when it comes to reaching a larger audience, and that AI systems have the capability to become the solution.
“Business has moved into the digital experience economy where relevance wins,” he said, adding that Coveo was incorporated with the goal of fixing search relevance for enterprises. “Being relevant to a million people, at the same time, is not humanly possible without AI.”
Coveo also noted in its prospectus that its business experienced significant growth in 2021. For its fiscal year ending in March, it generated $64.9 million in revenue. By September, that number climbed to $71.9 million for the last 12 months, ending in September.
Most recently, Coveo completed its October acquisition of London, UK-based Qubit, a startup that specializes in business-to-consumer, AI-powered merchandising.
