Rent the Runway’s IPO pricing indicates bullish market for unicorns of all stripes – TechCrunch
It’s early within the Wednesday buying and selling session, which means that we’re ready on the primary trades of Lease the Runway inventory on the general public markets.
However what we do know is that the corporate priced at $21 per share, giving it a valuation of $1.33 billion utilizing a easy share depend, and round $1.47 billion on a fully-diluted foundation. For a corporation final valued at around $1 billion in 2019, these figures could not sound too spectacular. However I believe that they’re.
TechCrunch’s earlier protection of the Rent the Runway IPO filing and pricing run was, respectively, skeptical and pessimistic. And but public buyers not solely had sufficient curiosity for the IPO to proceed, but in addition for the clothes rental firm to cost on the high of its vary.
Let’s speak about why that’s bullish for unicorns extra broadly.
Tech-enabled versus Tech
A software program firm is a tech firm. And an e-commerce platform is a know-how firm. However a agency that merely employs e-commerce channels to promote its items is just not. It’s, as a substitute, tech-enabled.
The distinction is not any small nuance. Tech firms can find themselves valued at 40x or 50x revenues in right this moment’s markets. Considerations which are merely tech-enabled, nevertheless, are likely to commerce at decrease multiples.
