91¾«Æ·

Shares of data streaming platform closed at $45.02 on Thursday, or 25 percent above their IPO price on their first day of trading.

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The Mountain View-based company raised around $828 million through its IPO. Confluent priced its shares at $36 apiece, above its intended range of $29 to $33. The company saw its stock price pop 22 percent when it began trading Thursday, opening at $44.

Confluent is a data streaming platform that’s based on Apache Kafka. Its data infrastructure connects all of a company’s applications and systems and tracks events going on within the company in real-time. 

The company was founded in 2014 by CEO , and . The three initially worked at and developed Apache Kafka there in 2011. Confluent was later spun out of LinkedIn, and LinkedIn invested in the company’s $6.9 million Series A in November 2014.

Confluent last raised a $250 million Series E in April 2020, and is now valued at more than $10 billion after its first day of trading.

Here are the biggest winners from the IPO:

Number of shares: 35,015,997

Percentage: 15.3 percent

Value of stake at IPO price: Nearly $1.3 billion

Benchmark led Confluent’s $6.9 million Series A in November 2014. It holds the largest number of shares in the company and has the most voting power. The company saw its stake come up to nearly $1.3 billion at Confluent’s IPO price of $36 apiece.

Number of shares: 29,813,391

Percentage: 13 percent

Value of stake at IPO price: More than $1 billion

Index Ventures led Confluent’s $24 million Series B in July 2015. The firm is the second-largest shareholder in the company, with a stake now worth more than $1 billion.

Number of shares: 24,395,818

Percentage: 10.6 percent

Value of stake at IPO price: More than $878 million

Jun Rao is the co-founder of Confluent, along with Jay Kreps and Neha Narkhede. Rao is listed as one of the largest shareholders in the company, with a more than 10 percent stake. Rao’s stake at the IPO price comes out to more than $878 million.

Number of shares: 21,405,289Ìý

Percentage: 9.3 percent

Value of stake at IPO price: More than $770 million

Sequoia first led Confluent’s $50 million Series C in March 2017, before leading its $125 million Series D in January 2019. The firm’s stake is the smallest of the largest shareholders, but still comes out to more than $770 million at the IPO price of $36.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias