• DigitalOcean went public on Wednesday, but closed its first day of trading around 10% below its IPO price.
• DigitalOcean’s CEO says the IPO is a milestone and it will keep investing in its product and community.
• DigitalOcean competes with cloud giants like Amazon Web Services, but it focuses on developers and small and medium businesses.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Upstart Amazon Web Services rival DigitalOcean went public Wednesday in an IPO that saw the company finish its first day of trading some 10% below its initial price of $47. By the close of markets on Thursday, it had dropped another 1.74% or so. 

DigitalOcean, which has been backed by investors like Access Industries and Andreessen Horowitz, filed in February for its IPO under the ticker symbol DOCN, ultimately raising over $775 million in its debut. Its IPO filings showed that it booked $318 million in sales last year and has nearly 600,000 customers worldwide.

DigitalOcean is the latest in a string of tech IPOs. Airbnb soared 115% in its trading debut in December, the digital loan provider Affirm skyrocketed 110% on its first day of trading in January, dating app Bumble shot up 63% in its market debut in February, and gaming company Roblox spiked 16% in its debut earlier this month.  

CEO Yancey Spruill says that the IPO is a major milestone for the ten-year-old company, and that the money raised will go towards investing in its revenue growth rate and efficiency as it marches towards profitability.  

“I’m excited with the progress we made,” Spruill told Insider. “We’re excited for the next phase of the company. We want to grow a really big business.”

DigitalOcean competes with cloud giants like AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud. However, DigitalOcean differs in that it’s focused on software developers who are testing ideas and building side projects, as well as small and medium sized businesses, Spruill said. It’s also easy for customers to use and to get it up and running, he says.

“We’re making sure we keep people focused on the right priorities and we all stay connected,” Spruill said. “As we grow and scale, we ensure that we stay true to simplicity and we stay true to the customer base. We don’t want to ever take our eye off the opportunity.”

DigitalOcean plans to invest in its developer community and product

After the IPO, DigitalOcean plans to keep investing in building out its developer community, product, and data centers worldwide. It will look into possibly acquiring startups to grow its business, as well as creating more resources, tutorials, and support for customers.

“We’re going to continue investing in the community to engage with more people to come to DigitalOcean and test their ideas,” Spruill said. “We’re going to invest more in our product innovation so we have more things as businesses get off the ground.”

DigitalOcean had gone through three CEOs in the past three years. In 2018, former Citrix CEO Mark Templeton replaced co-founder Ben Uretsky as CEO. In July 2019, Spruill, who was COO and CFO of Twilio’s SendGrid, replaced Templeton.

DigitalOcean saw a major opportunity during the pandemic, as economic crises can be a catalyst for entrepreneurs starting their business, Spruill says. In particular, DigitalOcean saw its churn go down, Spruill said. 

“It’s a great market in terms of size. It creates a lot of growth potential for us,” Spruill said. “We’re staying focused and keeping our team focused and focused on the current customer base. That’s the formula from us to scale.”