Learn how to invest in Flexport stock when the IPO arrives. Get access to select IPOs with TradeStation and other online brokers that offer free IPO investing to eligible customers. Or browse pre-IPO platforms for early equity opportunities.
Table of Contents
Flexport Stock IPO News
11/27/2021: Shipping is broken. Flexport’s CEO has a plan to fix the supply
10/08/2021: Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen tells Cramer the shipping backlog is not improving
06/04/2021: What the Global Shipping Crunch Means for Small Business
05/25/2021: CNBC Disruptor 50: Flexport
05/24/2021: Sea change: global freight sails out of the digital dark ages
02/25/2021: Founder’s Field Guide – Interview with Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport
02/04/2020: Layoffs hit Flexport, another SoftBank-backed startup worth $3.2B
02/21/2019: Flexport Secures $1 Billion in Funding Led by SoftBank Vision Fund
What is Flexport?
Flexport is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) global logistics company that helps business customers manage their international shipping and supply chains. It’s a leading cloud software and data analytics platform provider for global trade.
The software empowers more than 10,000 customers to track global supply chains, including ocean, air, and trucking, to make data-driven decisions and streamline businesses.
Founder Ryan Peterson recognized that international shipping processes were stuck in another decade and saw an opportunity to disrupt the trillion-dollar freight industry.
Flexport was part of the Y Combinator W14 batch of early-stage startups and is a member of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list.
Is Flexport Stock Publicly Traded?
No, Flexport is privately owned.
The shareholders include founders, early investors (venture capital firms), and employees.
You can find a current list of Flexport investors at Crunchbase.
Flexport has raised more than $1.3 billion since its founding in 2013. The most recent raise was $1 billion in February 2019, led by Softbank.
The round valued the company at more than $3.2 billion.
Other prominent venture capital investors include Y Combinator, Founders Fund, DST Global, Wells Fargo, Bloomberg Beta, and GV.
Here’s a video showing describing how Flexport streamlines supply chains for Georgia Pacific (the international paper company). The video includes interviews and screen captures of the software at work.
When is the Flexport IPO Date?
The Flexport IPO date is currently unknown.
As of November 2021, the company is operating from cash flow and its latest funding rounds.
We won’t get a better sense of when the Flexport IPO date is until some of the following things happen:
- The company announces another funding round
- New information about the Flexport IPO date leaks to the financial press
- Flexport announces (or leaks) that it filed an S-1 confidentially with the SEC
- The SEC releases a publicly available Flexport S-1 filing
- Announcement (or press leak) of a forthcoming SPAC merger
- Flexport selects a lead underwriter or banking partner for the IPO
All of these milestones and announcements will serve as supporting evidence of progress toward a forthcoming public offering.
Even when the company and SEC publicly release the S-1 filing, we still won’t know a firm date. However, the IPO date typically occurs a month or two after the S-1 is released to the public.
Bookmark this page for the latest Flexport stock and IPO news.
What is the Flexport Stock Price?
Since Flexport is not publicly traded on a stock exchange, there is no Flexport stock price yet.
The company and its underwriters won’t publicize an estimated IPO price range until after the initial S-1 filing is made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
What is the Flexport Stock Symbol? Flexport Ticker?
Flexport has not yet submitted public filings to the SEC. Therefore, we don’t know what the Flexport stock symbol will be.
We can speculate. Here are a few suggestions that appear to be available in the U.S.
- FP
- FLX
- FLXP
- PORT
- FPRT
FLEX is already claimed by Flex Ltd., a Singapore-based engineering and manufacturing company.
Where can I find the Flexport S-1 Filing?
The Flexport S-1 filing is not yet available. Once it is public, we’ll post it here.
Startups often file their S-1s confidentially a few months before the public release. News of a confidential filing will help determine the Flexport IPO date.
You can find a real-time SEC feed of the latest IPO filings from companies on the recent S-1 filings page.
Will Flexport Stock be a Motley Fool Stock Advisor Recommendation?
We won’t know until after the IPO if Flexport will be a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. However, Flexport fits the mold of high-growth, disruptive business models that the Fool typically recommends.
Flexport will undoubtedly be on their radar once it goes public.
Fool newsletter subscribers are notoriously long-term-minded and rarely sell, meaning the right stocks often continue to rise over several years.
Flexport may also receive a recommendation by the Motley Fool Rule Breakers (Rule Breakers review) newsletter or other premium services. Both services have handily beaten the broader market since the early 2000s.
Read this Motley Fool Stock Advisor review to learn about the stock selection methodology and about how you can participate in excellent returns.
Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers are currently half-off at just $99 for an annual subscription.
Can you Invest in Flexport Stock? Three Potential Ways
Generally, it’s challenging to acquire shares of high-demand IPOs. Most investors will need to settle for buying the stock after it begins trading.
IPO underwriters typically give their best customers access first, then allocate shares to certain institutions and brokers often tied by existing relationships.
When the largest brokers receive IPO shares, they divvy them up amongst their eligible customers, prioritizing their most valued customers first (wealthiest).
For high-demand deals, most investors will not get shares.
However, s few brokers have partnered with the IPO investing app ClickIPO to give access to individual investors.
Investors are encouraged not to flip shares (sell them immediately after the IPO) on any platform. Flipping shares may reduce your ability to receive future allocations.
For individual investors without a high net worth, ClickIPO, and its partner brokers TradeStation and Webull are the most likely chance of participating in IPOs since the demise of LOYAL3 and Motif Investing.
Separately, Robinhood and SoFi have also started offering IPO access to customers.
With that, here are three potential ways to own Flexport Stock:
- Buy Flexport stock after it begins trading
- Buy Flexport stock in the Flexport IPO through a broker
- Attempt to acquire Flexport stock in pre-IPO investing marketplaces before the IPO
1. Buy Flexport stock after the Flexport IPO
Since acquiring IPO shares is almost always challenging for individual investors, the easiest way to own Flexport stock is to wait for the IPO to complete.
Realistically, unless your brokerage account is worth more than $1 million and your broker regularly receives IPO allocations, you are unlikely to get in on high-demand IPOs.
In some cases, patient investors can buy the stock at or below the IPO price. This is not always true.
The Airbnb IPO, for example, soared and never looked back. But Uber, which many predicted to rise steeply, actually fell on the IPO date.
Spending significant effort to acquire IPO shares may not be worth it in the end. You may also spend time and effort to obtain shares but only receive a small allocation, limiting upside gain.
Though IPOs can provide one-day gains north of 20%, even up to 100% in rare cases (such as Airbnb and Doordash), the most significant gains will come during the decade following the IPO if the company is genuinely disruptive.
Take, for example, Netflix, Amazon, or Tesla. You could have bought the stocks years after the IPO and still experienced gains of more than 1,000%
If you’re an investor that wants to buy Flexport stock for the long-term, consider opening a position after the IPO and averaging down if the stock falls.
Short-term traders may angle to acquire IPO shares and hope for a short-term pop.
2. Buy Flexport stock during the Flexport IPO through a broker
Ambitious investors can position themselves to invest in the Flexport IPO once it arrives.
Your chances of getting IPO shares depends on four factors:
- IPO demand
- Your broker and eligibility
- Your assets under management (AUM) at the broker
- Propensity to flip shares
As IPO demand increases, the chances of receiving IPO shares decreases. Therefore, the IPOs that are most interesting to the masses are the hardest to access.
Most online brokers do not offer IPO shares. Check directly to see if yours does, or look at our list of best brokers for IPO investing.
Legacy brokers like Fidelity and Charles Schwab have minimum eligibility requirements and penalties for flipping shares (selling shortly after the IPO).
But even if eligible, the brokers must sub-allocate whatever limited shares they receive from the IPO underwriters.
This process is non-transparent, but priority is likely given to the wealthiest investors first.
For example, if your account balance is $500,000, and that makes you eligible according to terms, the broker may only have enough IPO shares to distribute to customers with assets of $3,000,000 or more.
This brings us to ClickIPO.
ClickIPO is a smartphone app that partners with TradeStation (through the app) and Webull (directly) to deliver IPO access to ordinary investors.
There is no minimum account value required.
ClickIPO prioritizes IPO share distribution to investors who are less likely to flip shares and thus considered more desirable IPO beneficiaries (in theory).
Therefore, ClickIPO offers a value proposition to underwriters and newly public companies.
Though quick profits from IPOs is one way the large underwriter reward whale-sized clients.
Click here to subscribe to Access IPOs and download the free 15-page eBook, How to Invest in IPOs – A Fundamental Guide for Ordinary Investors, which provides more detail on this dynamic.
Joining a broker that offers access to IPOs does not guarantee a share allocation, especially in high-demand IPOs. You are probably better off waiting for the company to start trading after the IPO.
3. Attempt to acquire shares in pre-IPO investing marketplaces
Founders, early employees, and investors often find themselves in a difficult predicament. They own valuable shares of a company that doesn’t trade publicly.
These shareholders might have multi-million dollar net worth’s because of their stock holdings, but the stock is not liquid because it doesn’t trade on an exchange.
A few platforms have evolved to give these individuals a way to liquidate their holding before the IPO.
Some of the more prominent sites include Linqto, EquityZen, and Forge. Learn more about pre-IPO investing here.
These sites bring liquidity to an otherwise illiquid asset. Accredited investors (those with invested assets > $1,000,000) may join these sites and attempt to buy company shares when they become available.
The shares are only offered to accredited investors because the company’s financials are not publicly filed with regulators yet, increasing the investors’ risk.
For high-profile companies, demand is high, lowering your chances of acquiring shares. The author considers this a low-likelihood way to acquire shares. However, some readers have written with success stories buying shares this way.
Will There be a Flexport SPAC Merger?
A SPAC is a special purpose acquisition company, also known as a blank check company. They are shell companies designed to help established businesses go public without a traditional IPO.
The SPAC company merges with the established company and takes on the established company’s name. It’s also known as a reverse merger.
So many SPACs have gone public in the past 12 months that it’s likely Flexport receives frequent pitches.
Using a SPAC to go public allows the company to skip the complicated and expensive IPO process.
Not all companies are ready to IPO, making SPACs an attractive alternative to an IPO where the company can still raise new funds.
However, the more established a company is, the more resources it can hire to facilitate the traditional IPO process.
At this stage, given the number of prominent venture capital firms holding equity in Flexport, and its size, the author anticipates Flexport is more likely to conduct a traditional IPO versus a SPAC merger.
When early investors and employees need liquidity, and the company generates more significant revenue, the company will decide on the best way to go public — a traditional IPO, direct IPO, or SPAC merger.
Best Brokers to Buy Flexport Stock
What is the best online brokerage for buying Flexport stock when it begins trading?
If you want to attempt to participate in IPOs, TradeStation is the best low-minimum IPO investing broker for investors with assets under $100,000.
See the complete list of best brokers for IPO investing here to evaluate multiple IPO investing platforms.
Joining a broker that offers access to IPOs does not guarantee a share allocation, especially in high-demand IPOs. You are probably better off waiting for the company to start trading after the IPO.
Long-term buy-and-hold investors may prefer a broker not as geared toward frequent trading.
As an individual investor, you’ll want to open an account with a commission-free online broker. That way, you’ll invest most of your money instead of wasting it on fees.
I’m a big fan of the online brokerage M1 Finance. M1 Finance is a reliable and robust, no-fee online broker for beginner to advanced investors.
As your investing skills and portfolio mature, M1 is one of the best platforms to scale.
Investing in stocks is 100% free on the platform. They also offer an integrated checking account and low borrowing rates. Read my complete M1 Finance review here.
The platform is more intuitive than traditional brokers because it’s built on a modern technology platform. You create portfolio “pies” that contain all the stocks and ETFs you want to own and in what percentages. Add Flexport stock to your portfolio pie once it begins trading.
M1 Finance does not offer IPO access. But it’s my favorite for long-term investing, which is my preferred strategy for disruptive IPO companies.
* Disclosure: The web page contains affiliate links from our partners. If a reader opens an account or buys a service from a link in this article, we may be compensated at no additional cost to the reader. Opening an account with a broker that provides access to IPOs does not guarantee the customer allocations of specific IPOs. The author is long TSLA, ABNB, AMZN.
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