Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
Last week we noted that the IPO window was open, a seemingly incongruous reality when compared to stark unemployment figures in the country and what they would seem to bode for business health. But as the markets rise to near-record highs, it has become clear that investors are open to buying new, growth-oriented shares.
Our concluding point last week was simple: The open IPO window and its implied investor sentiment was good news for unicorns. The richly valued, private companies tend to lose more money than they would if they wanted to go public in normal times. But with the IPO window open today for more than merely profitable companies, surely it’s open for unicorns as well?
New evidence suggests so. This morning, let’s explore Vroom’s new IPO pricing and why the digital used car marketplace’s ability to charge more for its equity than the company initially expected bodes well for itself and other money-losing unicorns that may have feared the IPO window was shut for the rest of 2020.
On Friday, Vroom changed its expected IPO price range from $15 to $17 per share and raised it to $18 to $20 per share. The number of shares the firm intends to sell in its debut — 21,562,500 — remained unchanged. The pricing change pushed Vroom’s maximum gross raise from $366.6 million to $431.3 million, a huge increase for the unprofitable business.
What we have here, then, is not merely another unprofitable unicorn. We have a very low-margin, unprofitable unicorn, that is still drawing enough investor interest to raise its IPO range.