Yahoo Finance Nextdoor Surges in Public Market Debut After SPAC Merger
(Bloomberg) -- Investors gave Nextdoor Holdings Inc. a warm welcome to the public markets neighborhood. Shares of the localized social networking company surged 40% in its first hour of trading.
Most Read from Bloomberg
Amazon Sued Over Crashes by Drivers Rushing to Make Deliveries
What Designers of Video Game Cities Understand About Real Cities
Hong Kong's New Museum Tries to Please Art World — and Beijing
Nextdoor began trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KIND after merging with the special purpose acquisition company Khosla Ventures Acquisition Co. II. The shares were temporarily halted and resumed trading with gains of more than 30% over the SPAC’s Friday closing price.
Sarah Friar, the chief executive officer, said her focus is on “the long run,” not the stock price. “It’s all about execution,” she said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.
“We’ve aggregated the neighborhood,” said Friar, who previously ran the financial department at Square Inc. “Now let’s welcome other businesses that can bring to those neighbors what they need.”
Nextdoor’s user base has widened during the coronavirus pandemic as people seek new ways to connect with their communities from a distance. The site had 63 million users in mid-2021, up from 48 million in 2019. The SPAC merger valued the business at $4.3 billion.
Among Nextdoor’s competition is Facebook. People buy and sell goods on Facebook Marketplace, and parent company Meta Platforms Inc. has been testing a Nextdoor-like service in Canada called Neighborhoods.
Like Facebook, Nextdoor grapples with hate speech. Friar said Nextdoor is taking steps to make the site “kinder,” including by instituting what it calls a kindness reminder to notify users that their posts may be moderated.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
One of the World’s Poorest Countries Found a Better Way to Do Stimulus
Lordstown’s Auto Industry Is Coming Back. The Jobs? Not So Much
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
