TM Editors' note: This article discusses a penny stock and/or microcap. Such stocks are easily manipulated; do your own careful due diligence.

Image Source: www.gotcredit.com via Flickr

Shares of Hong Kong-based online marketplace provider GigaCloud jumped almost 30% in its debut earlier this week. It opened at $19.20 on Thursday, up 57% from its original price of $12.25 per share. JD.com (JD) owns a 12% stake in the business-to-business trading platform.

Latest IPOs and Direct Listings

GigaCloud (GCT) opened on Aug. 18 at $19.20. The company had priced its initial public offering of 2.94 million shares at a public offering price of $12.25. GigaCloud calls itself a "pioneer of global end-to-end B2B e-commerce solutions for large parcel merchandise."

Innovative Eyewear (LUCY) opened on Aug. 15 at $6.50. The company had priced its initial public offering of 980,000 units, consisting of 980,000 shares of its common stock and two accompanying warrants to purchase up to 1,960,000 shares of common stock.

Each share of common stock is being sold together with two warrants, each to purchase one share of common stock with an exercise price of $7.50 per share at a combined offering price of $7.50, for gross proceeds of approximately $7.35 million.

Innovative Eyewear is a developer and retailer of smart eyewear that also offers prescription eyewear and sun protection. The company says its "multifunctional products" address the "needs of the optical, hearables, and digital assistant markets."

Performance

• GigaCloud ended the week at $48.01.
• Innovative Eyewear finished Friday at $4.80.

Recent IPOs to Watch

Mobile Global Esports (MGAM), ECB Bancorp (ECBK), and MAIA Biotechnology (MAIA) are among stocks that could see new coverage roll out this upcoming week as the quiet periods for banks that underwrote the companies' IPOs expire.

Upcoming IPOs

Upcoming IPO and direct listings expected include Instacart, Starbox, and Bitdefender.

Instacart, the grocery-delivery company that competes with offerings from Amazon (AMZN), Uber (UBER), and DoorDash (DASH), still expects to go public before year's end despite 2022 to date being "one of the slowest years for IPOs in more than a decade," The Wall Street Journal's Berber Jin, Corrie Driebusch, Jaewon Kang, and Preetika Rana reported earlier this week.

Instacart confidentially filed for an initial public offering with the SEC earlier this year and is in the process of responding to comments from the SEC on its IPO documents, sources familiar with the matter told the reporters. Instacart, which had previously leaned toward going public via a direct listing, is now considering a traditional IPO so it could raise cash that could be used for future acquisitions, the sources said.

Starbox Group has filed with the SEC for an initial public offering of its ordinary shares and said in its latest filing that it expects the initial public offering price of the shares to be in the range of $4.00 to $5.00 per share.

The company has reserved the symbol 'STBX' for purposes of listing its ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market, and they have applied to list the shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market. It is a condition to the closing of the offering that the shares qualify for listing on a national securities exchange. 

Bitdefender Holding B.V., which identifies itself as "a global cybersecurity leader," announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form F-1 to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission for the proposed initial public offering of its securities in the United States.

"The timing, size, and price range for the proposed offering have yet to be determined. The initial public offering is subject to SEC and other regulatory review processes, as well as market and other conditions," the company said. Bitdefender did not disclose a proposed ticker symbol for its anticipated stock offering.

More By This Author: