VTex was valued at $3.5bn in a public listing last month after its executives and bankers wooed investors in more than 50 meetings. Instead of logging thousands of air miles and checking in to glitzy hotels, the Brazilian tech group’s marketing blitz relied on a less flashy solution: video conferencing.
Roadshows, once a hallmark of debt and equity raising known for large lunches and a frenetic pace of meetings, set over multiple days and spanning cities across the world, have been halted by the pandemic.
Debt and equity bankers at big financial companies say that after coronavirus struck, their days of globetrotting in their quest to raise capital came to an abrupt end. Far from mourning physical roadshows’ demise, however, bankers, investors and even some company executives appear to be warming to the new way of doing things.