The former chief executive of Pets.com, one of the notorious stock listings of the internet bubble, is returning to public markets with another venture.
Julie Wainwright led Pets.com through its initial public offering in 2000 before the company was liquidated eight months later, a moment that presaged the end of the dotcom boom. Ms Wainwright's next venture is The RealReal, a second-hand store for luxury brands, that will list later this year.
The company links buyers hunting for cut-price Hermès scarves and Manolo Blahnik heels with sellers keen to lighten their closets. The RealReal operates an online trading platform and has nine brick-and-mortar consignment stores across seven US cities including a near-6,000sq metre flagship location in Soho, New York's fashion mecca.
The company on Friday filed to list its shares on Nasdaq, according to documents lodged with the US securities regulator. The company has 135m shares and will outline the amount it aims to float closer to its IPO date, which has not yet been set.
The RealReal last year grew total revenue 55 per cent to $207m but chalked up a net loss of $75.8m for the year. The company has raised $288m in private capital since launching eight years ago, including a $115m haul last July.
Ms Wainwright has held a variety of leadership roles in the technology sector and launched The RealReal in 2011 with $100,000. The business marked her first fashion venture and targets a neglected corner of the business — leading marques bristle at the idea of dealing in second-hand goods, but consumers are hungry to buy and sell used high-end fashion at a reasonable price.
The company will pass along an estimated $500m to the sellers on its platform this year, a sum that Ms Wainwright believes eventually flows back to the high-end brands that have snubbed the second-hand market.
"That's a lot of money," Ms Wainwright told the Financial Times last year. "It's not like money that goes to someone's education. It's woohoo! Fashion budget!"
The RealReal offers a contrast to the common narrative sweeping the retail sector. As the pressure from ecommerce companies such as Amazon has forced many to shut their doors, the fashion consignment group has expanded. Its latest store was unveiled this month on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where would-be sellers can drop off items that are evaluated by specialists before being listed for sale.
The plan to list comes after a burst of IPOs in recent months as private companies tap public equity markets. Shares in jeans retailer Levi Strauss surged 30 per cent on the day it listed, while Beyond Meats, a plant-based food producer, jumped 42 per cent on its first day of trading. Others have faltered. Lyft and Uber, the lossmaking ride-hailing rivals, have performed dismally and remain below their listing prices.
"The first year we were $10m in gross revenues," Ms Wainwright said last year. "And then I thought, well, I'm on to something, I'd better scale it faster. And so, since then, I've raised $288m."
Pets.com remains a symbol of the excesses of the internet bubble. Its initial public offering raised $82.5m but eight months later the company had gone to dust. The company's liquidation marked a change in sentiment for internet stocks that triggered a bear market that wiped out half the value of US stocks over a two-year period.
0 comentários:
Postar um comentário