Kingsoft Cloud IPO Defies Expectation as Vroom angles for debut

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

Last Friday something very odd happened: the public debut of Kingsoft Cloud, a company that we've covered before. I'm nigh-incredulous about this IPO for the host of issues that we discussed when the company first filed. Since then, IPOs have only gotten only stranger.

Kingsoft is not the only company looking to tap the public markets. Vroom, which has raised over $700 million according to Crunchbase, is looking to go public this summer. The company sells used cars, which makes it going public all the more fun; aren't car sales in the toilet?

But that IPO filing is still private, pushing Vroom's debut at least a month into the future. Today, then, let's work understand why Kingsoft Cloud successfully going public is surprising. And why what happened after it priced is even more of a shock.

This company went public?

When Kingsoft Cloud filed its F-1 to go public, we were in awe of its wild and weird financial results.