KITCHENER — D2L’s debut as a public company Wednesday sets the stage for the Kitchener firm to become a world leader in online learning, its founder said.
“It gives us a foundation to build from,” John Baker, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said in an interview hours after D2L shares began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
“Our viewpoint is it’s not the short term that matters, it’s being able to build the value over the long term,” he said. “By us staying true to our mission, really having outsize impact in the world, we can build a world leader here with this foundation.”
Formerly Desire2Learn, the company that Baker founded in 1999, while he was still a student at the University of Waterloo, is the second Waterloo Region business to go public this year; Magnet Forensics launched on the TSX in April.
Originally eyeing an offer price of between $19 and $21 per share and gross proceeds of about $200 million, D2L scaled back the size of its initial public offering last week. Shares were offered at $17, for gross proceeds of about $150 million.
“I’m thrilled with the outcome,” Baker said Wednesday afternoon, prior to the stock’s close at $16.75 after its first day of trading. “It’s not easy doing an IPO.”
D2L’s flagship product, the Brightspace cloud-based software platform, can be used by students from kindergarten through university, and is also suited for corporate training, professional development and upskilling.
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced students into remote learning all over the world, D2L saw its customer base grow by a third in fiscal 2021. Revenue increased 15.4 per cent in fiscal 2021, after a 5.8 per cent increase in fiscal 2020.
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“Our technology’s never been more vitally needed by learners all over the world, whether that’s in schools, universities or companies,” Baker said. “It’s almost like we’ve been pulled into the future where people have moved up the technology adoption curve.”
Going public “gives us a currency that we didn’t have before” and helps drive investment in improving existing products and launching new ones, he said. As well, the company sees plenty of opportunity in expanding its global reach; while it has customers in more than 40 countries, less than 20 per cent of total revenue came from outside North America in fiscal 2021.
D2L is also in hiring mode, Baker added, with dozens of openings available.
“This is such a huge milestone for us,” he said. “It really helps us turn the page on the beginning of our company and start the next chapter, as we start to build the future of work and learning as a public company.”
