Stock market investors are lining up for a piece of Castlight Health, a young company that provides software to track health care costs.
Shares of the company more than doubled in their trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning. The stock opened at $37.50 a share, after the initial public offering was priced at $16 a share on Thursday evening.
At the I.P.O. price, the company raised $177.6 million, not including additional shares that the underwriters have the option to buy. That valued the company’s equity at $1.39 billion.
Founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, Castlight caters to businesses that want to track and analyze the cost of providing health care coverage to their employees. The company makes most of its money by selling subscriptions to its software suite. Its customers include CVS Caremark, T. Rowe Price and Tesla, according to its website.
The company has been a venture capital favorite, raising $100 million in a financing round in 2012. And it has the support of prominent figures in health care and government.
One of the Castlight’s three founders is Todd Park, who currently works as President Obama’s chief technology officer. Dr. Robert Kocher, a former special assistant to the president who helped shape the Affordable Care Act, sits on the company’s board. Another director is David Ebersman, the chief financial officer of Facebook.
The company’s revenue more than tripled last year to $13 million, according to its I.P.O. prospectus. But it is not yet profitable, reporting a $62 million loss for 2013.
The stock offering consisted of 11.1 million Class B shares, which, in certain situations, have 10 times fewer votes than Class A shares, which the insiders hold. Those situations include when an investor seeks to own 30 percent or more of the total shares.
The stock trades under the ticker symbol CSLT. The joint book-runners of the offering are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
