It may not be a globally popular social network or a highly regarded human resources software company. But Zulily is finding plenty of demand from investors all the same.
Shares in the retailer, which focuses on flash sales of products for children and mothers, jumped more than 80 percent in their market debut on Friday. Even by early afternoon, the stock was still up 72 percent, at $37.85.
It was an auspicious opening for Zulily, which had already priced its offering at $22 a share, $2 above its expected range. Over all, the company raised $253 million, but could raise more if underwriters exercise an overallotment option.
Now, the public markets value the three-year-old retailer at roughly $4.6 billion.
Zulily’s glowing reception will probably change what Dan Primack of Fortune described as a virtual lack of interest from the technology press. Unlike Twitter or Workday, the company isn’t a hot technology stock. It sells goods like the Bubblegum Vintage Kitchen, a Hogwarts train set from Lionel and women’s sweaters.
That may not excite the technology enthusiasts at the Creamery Cafe in San Francisco, but it has created a fast-growing business. Zulily more than doubled its sales in the first nine months of the year, to $438.7 million. And it reported a small $155 million profit, reversing from a $13.6 million loss in the year-ago period.
That may augur well for other online retailers like Gilt Groupe and One Kings Lane, both of which are the subjects of I.P.O. buzz.
At Friday afternoon’s stock price, the I.P.O. has made a paper billionaire of the company’s chairman, Mark Vadon, and a near-billionaire of its chief executive, Darrell Cavens. The two men, who founded Zulily, previously worked at Blue Nile, which Mr. Vadon founded.
Neither sold shares in the offering. Those who did include Maveron, the investment firm co-founded by the Starbucks chief Howard Schultz, and the venture capital firms August Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
The offering was led by Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.
