Medallia's stock rose 76 percent on its first day, one of the best debuts of 2019. The company sold software that listened. It collected surveys, reviews, and comments from customers of hotels, banks, and airlines, then sorted them so managers could fix problems fast. Its founders, a married couple, had spent eighteen years building it before the offering. By then cloud software was the hottest corner of the stock market.

Feedback Nobody Read

Borge Hald and Amy Pressman founded Medallia in 2001. The bet was that companies collected customer feedback and then did nothing with it. Medallia made the comments arrive in real time, routed to the person who could act. Luxury hotels were among the first buyers. Banks, retailers, and telecom companies followed. The company stayed private for nearly two decades and grew to serve some of the largest brands in the world.

A Short Run in Public

Medallia priced at $21 a share, above its range, and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on July 19, 2019. The stock closed the day up about 76 percent. Its public life lasted just over two years. In 2021 Thoma Bravo agreed to buy the company for $34 a share in cash, about $6.4 billion. The deal closed that October, and Medallia went private again.

Cover: Medallion Portrait of Mlle de Fontanges, Eugène François Marie Joseph Devéria. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a portrait medallion (the name and the face of the customer).