ARM: Chip Designer Arm Defies IPO Drought as Shares Shoot Up 25% in Debut

The biggest IPO of the year tested investor demand and picked up about $16bn on its first trading day as a Nasdaq-listed company.

• Arm stock ARM popped 10% out of the gate in its public-market debut Thursday. Hype, growth prospects, and some lofty expectations for a chip designer to excel in the AI race propelled Arm shares by 25%, closing their first day at $63.59, from an IPO price of $51 a share.
• The SoftBank-backed company provides chip designs used in just about every smartphone. Arm picked up revenue for its March 2023 fiscal year of $2.68bn. In essence, what Arm does is come up with designs that are later handed to someone else to do the building. In other words, it’s a capital-light business.
• The spectacular performance indicated that the IPO market may finally be coming out of its two-year slump. Companies waiting to go public, such as grocery-delivery app Instacart, sandal-maker Birkenstock, and data-automation platform Klaviyo, could very well interpret the flashy IPO as a positive sign for their own debuts.