🦜 POLLY'S EXTRAS · FRIDAY, NOV 13, 2026
Happy Friday. On Wednesday we flagged vVardis (VVVV), the Swiss company behind a no-drill treatment for early cavities, as one of three health IPOs on deck. Last night it priced at $18 a share, $3 below its $21 to $24 range, but sold more shares than planned and raised about $175 million (IPO Scoop). A discount and a bigger deal at the same time is unusual, so today we unpack it.
Logo: vVARDIS, from vvardis.com
🦷 The deal, step by step
Original plan: 9.52 million shares at $21 to $24 (IPO Scoop).
Thursday morning: cut to 8.33 million shares at the same range, about 13% less money at the midpoint (Renaissance Capital).
Thursday night: priced at $18 and raised the count back up to 9.72 million shares, for $174.96 million (IPO Scoop).
Value: about $3.28 billion at pricing (IPO Scoop).
Trading: The stock opened at $14.00 on the NYSE today, $4.00 (about 22%) below the $18 IPO price (IPO Scoop). By around 1:20 p.m. ET it was at $15.88, still $2.12 below $18, on about 2.03 million shares traded (IPO Scoop). The New York Post also reported the $14 open (NY Post).
New here? Pricing below the range means buyers would only take the stock at a cheaper price. Adding shares at that lower price suggests there was demand, just not at the original asking price.
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🔬 What vVardis does
Founded in 2020 in Zug by dentists and sisters Dr. Haley Abivardi and Dr. Goly Abivardi, vVardis makes Curodont, a peptide treatment a dentist applies to early cavities in five minutes or less, with no drilling (IPO Scoop). In the US it sells Curodont Repair Fluoride Plus as an over-the-counter drug, and that product brings in the vast majority of revenue (Renaissance Capital).
Growth: it expects nine-month 2026 revenue of $47.7 million to $49.2 million, up from $22.3 million a year earlier (SEC filing).
Losses: it lost $52.2 million on $49.68 million of revenue in the 12 months to June 30, 2026 (IPO Scoop), and expects a nine-month net loss of $39.7 million to $41.3 million (SEC filing).
Backers: private equity firm Apollo invested in April 2026, and OrbiMed is also a shareholder (IPO Scoop).
⚠️ The risks
One distributor: Henry Schein is its exclusive distributor in the US and UK (SEC filing).
Founder control: the founders will hold 87.6% of the voting power after the deal, through a dual-class structure (SEC filing).
Debt terms: it needed waivers from its lender OrbiMed for covenant breaches in April and September 2026 (SEC filing).
📊 What it says about the IPO market
The other two health deals split. Windward Bio (WWB) priced at $17, the midpoint, raising $175 million plus $50 million from Sanofi in a side deal (Renaissance Capital). Rezera (RZRA) postponed its $200 million IPO on Thursday (Renaissance Capital). So buyers are still writing checks, but they are choosing carefully and pushing back on price, right before Anthropic's giant listing tests the market next week.
📮 Reader poll: Was $18 a fair reset for vVardis? Hit reply with yes, no, or too early to tell.
🦜 Polly's Take
Opinion: vVardis did something companies often avoid: it took the haircut and grew the deal anyway. Revenue more than doubling makes the story easy to like, but losses, one US distributor and founder control explain why buyers wanted a lower entry price. How the stock trades from $18 will show whether the market thinks the discount was too steep or just right.
Commentary for education, not investment advice.
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