Shares of SoFi were up more than 6% on Tuesday after the online finance company made its public debut.
SoFi, short for Social Finance, went public by merging with Social Capital Hedosophia Corp V, a blank-check company run by venture capital investor Chamath Palihapitiya. The stock was up 6.7% to $21.50 in afternoon trading.
Special purpose acquisition companies, known as SPACs, raise money through a shell company to buy an existing firm and have become increasingly popular in the past year.
The shares were previously listed under the ticker IPOE for Palihapitiya’s special purpose vehicle. Shares of Palihapitiya’s venture closed at $20.15 on Friday, up 62% year to date.
Founded in 2011 with a focus on student loan refinancing for millennials, SoFi offers stock and cryptocurrency trading, personal and mortgage loans, and wealth management services.
“We’re the only one stop shop to do all your financial service needs at one platform,” CEO Anthony Noto told CNBC’s “TechCheck.” “Many people talked about broadening the suite of products but only SoFi has done it on one mobile platform.”
SoFi was last valued at $5.7 billion in private markets. It’s attracted funding from investors such as Peter Thiel, private equity firm Silver Lake and SoftBank, according to PitchBook.
— CNBC’s Kate Rooney contributed to this report.
Correction: Shares of Palihapitiya’s venture closed at $20.15 on Friday, up 62% year to date. An earlier version misstated the percentage.
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