Online boom: SoftBank-backed Coupang surges to over $100 billion valuation in debut – Reuters

Online boom: SoftBank-backed Coupang surges to over $100 billion valuation in debut – Reuters

(Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp-backed Coupang was valued at around $109 billion in its market debut on Thursday after South Korea's largest e-commerce company raised around $4.6 billion in the biggest U.S. initial public offering this year.Coupang's stock soared 81% to open at $63.50. The company had priced 130 million shares sold in the IPO at $35 per share, higher than the marketing range $32-$34 per share, giving the Seoul-headquartered e-commerce giant a market value of $60 billion.Founded in 2010 by Korean-American billionaire Bom Suk Kim, Coupang rose to prominence after launching its guaranteed same-day or next-day delivery service in the East Asian country. SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund owns 35.1% of Coupang.Coupang's spectacular debut further bolsters the recent fortunes of the Vision Fund, which is bouncing back from an annual loss last March. Last month, it announced record quarterly profit.Coupang operates an online marketplace that sells everything from fresh groceries to toys, as well as food delivery app Coupang Eats.“We're laser focused on our home market,” Kim said in an interview. “We're going to invest in 50,000 more jobs and billions of dollars more in not only the infrastructure, but the unique end to end technology that powers all