Artificial Intelligence-powered media attribution and analytics company Veritone Inc. has certainly seen roller-coaster like activity for its stock since an IPO in mid-May 2017.
Now, the up and down activity for VERI shares has gone into a canyon again.
At the Closing Bell on Thursday, Veritone shares finished with a thud, sliding 16.7% to $17.99 per share. Volume was exceptionally high, at 1.5 million shares. Normal trading volume is 194,625 shares.
The dip happened in after-hours trading on Wednesday, and persisted across today’s activity on Wall Street.
The reason for the sell-off: Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company announced following Wednesday’s Closing Bell that it has commenced a new underwritten public offering of its public stock.
Initially, details were scant as nervous shareholders questioned if their holdings would be diluted by the issuance of new stock — a common move to bolster cash.
On Thursday, it became known that Veritone priced 1.7 million shares of its common stock for public offering at $18 a share.
In addition, Veritone granted the underwriters for the offering a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 255,000 shares of common stock offered in the public offering.
The offering is expected to close on Monday (6/25), subject to customary closing conditions. Gross proceeds to Veritone from the offering will be $30.6 million, before deducting the underwriting discounts and other offering expenses payable by Veritone, but excluding any exercise of the underwriters’ option.
JMP Securities LLC and Roth Capital Partners are acting as book-running managers for the offering.
