VC-backed Zoopla valued at £919m in IPO

The company has listed around 160 million shares on the London Stock Exchange, equivalent to a 38.3% stake, excluding a 16-million share overallotment option. Should the overallotment be exercised in full, the listing will generate £369.9m in proceeds.

Atlas and Octopus took part in a £3.75m funding round for Zoopla in January 2009 and later further pumped £1.75m into the company in early 2011.

According to the company's IPO prospectus, Atlas intended to sell 21.8 million shares, reducing its stake in Zoopla from 11.6% to 6.4%. The capital will generate returns for the Atlas Venture Fund VII.

Octopus intended to sell 8.2 million shares, reducing its stake from around 4.4% to 2.4%, according to the same document. Its stake in the company was held by the Zenith fund, Octopus Eureka EIS and Octopus Titan VCTs.

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), which held a 52.1% stake in Zoopla, will reduce its shareholding to 31-33.7%, dependent on overallotment take-up. Principle shareholders and management have agreed to a 180-day lock-up period following the IPO.

The company stated it had received significant interest from institutional investors, which account for 155.8 million of the listed shares.

Zoopla, which has previously expressed it expects to be included on the FTSE 250 Index, will be eligible for inclusion in the index from September.

Conditional dealings have commenced under the "ZPLA" ticker with admission to the premium segment of LSE expected to take place on 23 June. No new shares have been issued as part of the process.

Credit Suisse and Jefferies acted as joint global coordinators, joint sponsors and joint bookrunners. Canaccord Genuity acted as co-lead manager.

Company
Founded in 2007, Zoopla is a London-headquartered property search website. The company has a headcount of more than 200.

People
Alex Chesterman is founder and CEO of Zoopla. Dustin Dolginow is a venture partner at Atlas. Alistair Seabright is managing director and head of unquoted investments at Octopus.

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