Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Demand Media Up 32 Percent In IPO

Santa Monica-based Demand Media, the online publishing network run by Richard Rosenblatt, had a huge reception in the public markets Wednesday, closing up 32 percent in its initial public offering. Demand, which debuted on the NYSE as DMD this morning, priced at $17.00, but soon shot up to as high as $25.00 per share. The firm closed at $22.65 Wednesday afternoon. Demand Media's IPO was well above the firm's initial estimated range of $14.00 to $16.00 per share, and the firm also boosted the number of shares it sold to 8.9 million shares. Demand Media was venture backed by Oak Investment Partners, Spectrum Equity, W Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs & Co., and Generation Partners. The IPO marks another huge success for Rosenblatt, who headed up Intermix Media when it sold MySpace to News Corp., and also is the latest in a string of successful IPOs from Southern California, venture backed companies in the last year.

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