Zipster members open their their Zipcars with keyless entry cards and the company likewise has smoothly entered the public markets with a turbo-charged $173.4 million initial public offering.
Zipcar, the Cambridge, Mass.-based car-sharing service which competes with Connect by Hertz, priced its IPO at $18 per share April 13 and began trading the next day.
The stock price has soared up to 67% and was trading this morning at $28 per share, a nifty 55.5% over the $18 initial pricing.
All of this bodes well for other would-be tech IPOs, including those for Kayak and HomeAway, although the market will judge each on their own merits.
Zipcar says it intends to use the cash infusion to expand the business, pay down debt and for general corporate purposes.
The company offers its ride-sharing service in 14 major metropolitan areas, plus 230 college campuses in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and has consistently been posting losses over the last couple of years as it invests in expansion and infrastructure.
Zipcars pre-existing investors still control the now-public company. They are Revolution Living [Living Social, Exclusive Resorts], Benchmark Capital Partners [Northstar, Travelpost, Yelp], Smedvig Capital and Greylock Partners [Airbnb, Facebook, Gowalla, LinkedIn].