** Chip firm Astera Labs ALAB.O set for public debut on
Weds after IPO prices well above target, riding a wave of
enthusiasm for artificial intelligence
** Astera and shareholders sold 19.8 mln shares at $36,
above already upwardly revised deal size and range of $32-$34,
for ~$713 mln gross raise
** Astera's shares to begin trading on the Nasdaq with
symbol "ALAB"
** At the IPO price, Astera achieved valuation of about $5.5
bln and a fully diluted value of around $6 bln. In its last
funding round in 2022, co was valued at $3 bln
** Astera provides vital data center components to customers
including large cloud service providers
** Its Aries product, which generates the majority of co's
revenue, helps CPUs and GPUs scale their data input/output
bandwidth (Click here for SEC prospectus filing)
** Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan leading 12-firm underwriting
group on the IPO
** The offering comes as Nvidia NVDA.O chief Jensen Huang
kicked off his firm's annual developer conference this week
(Lance Tupper is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed
are his own)
((lance.tupper@thomsonreuters.com
lance.tupper@tr.com 1-646-279-6380))