Today, June 4, is the first day on the public market for ZoomInfo Technologies. The stock ticker, which not in our database quite yet because it's too fresh, is $ZI, if you wanted to get in on the action. 

This Massachusetts-based startup was founded in 2000, then DiscoverOrg ($PRIVATE:DISCOVERORG) purchased them for half a billion. The company gathers publicly available data (just like us) about other companies, but instead, their business model is a cloud-based market intelligence platform for marketing and sales teams. When it went public, ZoomInfo was valued at $8.2 billion, thanks to additional funding from investors/shareholders such as Carlyle Group, Dragoneer Investment, TA Associates, BlackRock, 22C Captial, and Fidelity.

ZoomInfo's filing has a lot of interesting tidbits if you wanted to read the whole thing, but we think this quote sufficiently and succinctly says it all: "Our cloud-based platform provides highly accurate and comprehensive information on the organizations and professionals they target. This '360-degree view' enables sellers and marketers to shorten sales cycles and increase win rates by delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time, to hit their number."

So why an IPO? Why now, with markets nearly fully-recovered from the Coronavirus downturn? What makes this company so valuable? Maybe a quick check on ZoomInfo's alternative data might help answer those questions.

The first reason for ZoomInfo's success: growth. The (at the time) startup added a lot of employees over the past few years. Our LinkedIn employee count data shows a staggering 323.5% increase since 2017. 

The second reason: hiring. The global pandemic that decimated job listings from companies big and small everywhere didn't have that big of an impact on ZoomInfo's plans. The company has still been able to add new hires to its ranks this year, maintaining 70% of the job openings it had in January, and double what it had last year at this time. 

Our final reason: ZoomInfo's social media looks really good! It might help that they get confused with Zoom Communications, but the Facebook Likes and Twitter followers seem like natural growth and not a case of mistaken identity. 

From DataDog to Okta, to other software and technology firms, recent IPOs not focused on the consumer have paid off for investors and their pre-IPO backers alike. And judging by the pop ZoomInfo had during its first day on the markets, the trend may continue - opening the door for other tech IPOs in 2020.

About the Data:

Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales, and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue, and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.

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