Game engine developer Unity Software ($U) went public on the New York Stock Exchange Friday. The San Francisco-based company's cross-platform gaming engine has fueled a boom in 3D game development, with a focus on mobile games and virtual reality content.
The company offered up 25 million shares and trading began at $75 per share as the market opened, up from its $52 initial listing price. The pop brought the company's market cap as high as $20 billion, closer to big-league game developers such as EA and Nintendo, although share price edged lower to $68 by the close of the trading day.
Unity says it isn't looking to be pigeon-holed in the gaming industry. As investors scramble to put money into tech stocks, the company is making the case that it spans multiple industries.
"We are in the gaming industry, but we're also in a lot of other industries," CFO Kimberly Jabal told Cheddar. "We have empowered creators. We've democratized game development, but we're not actually a gaming company. We're a technology company."
Jabal said Unity is creating solutions for all types of real-time 3D developers, not just gamers.
"We help them to design and to build their applications," she said. "Then we help them monetize and to operate and to grow their customer base."
Unity is also extending the benefits of the IPO to its employees by allowing them to sell 15 percent of their shares on the first day of trading, rather than after 180 days as is usually stipulated in public offerings.
"We wanted them to be able to sell right away," Jabal said. "They've been working hard, some of them for 15 years."
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
