Shares of Walmart-backed Ibotta soar 23% on public debut

Shares of Ibotta, a Walmart-backed digital company that offers customers cash-back rewards and rebates on grocery brands ranging from Nestle to Coca-Cola, rose 23% in its Wall Street debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock, which is listed under the ticker “IBTA,” opened for trading Thursday at $107.10, above the $88 offering price and outside of the originally expected pricing range of $76 and $84 per share. The Denver company, founded by lawyer Bryan Leach in 2011, works with more than 850 different clients and represents 2,400 different consumer packaged brands, according to its prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Walmart, Family Dollar, Kroger and other major retailers use Ibott’s artificial intelligence-enabled software.