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Affirm this afternoon, A startup focused on providing POS credit to consumers who make online purchases announced that it has filed for an IPO.
The submission is confidential so the news will reveal little about the company's performance. As early as July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Affirm was considering a public offer. After this news, theinformationsuperhighway tried to understand the valuation Affirm was targeting on its debut, which we put at up to $ 10 billion.
Affirm has received ample funding throughout his personal life. The fintech unicorn has raised more than $ 1 billion in private funding, including a Series G valued at $ 500 million in September 2020, a Series F valued at $ 300 million in April 2019, and a Series E valued at $ 200 million in December 2017. Affirm also raised more than $ 1 billion, $ 400 million in previous equity rounds and a $ 100 million debt line in late 2016.
Many venture bets are therefore based on the success of Affirm and its future liquidity.
According to PitchBook data, the company was valued at $ 2.9 billion at the time of its $ 300 million Series F last year. The latest valuation of the company is unknown. It is therefore not clear how much a $ 10 billion increase in a public valuation would be from its final private valuation.
Affirm will enter warm public markets if it chooses to quote in a short amount of time. The third quarter of 2020 was a bonanza for public market liquidity as the United States had its most active quarter of public offerings since at least 2016, thanks in part to buzz for SPACs. With retail investors and larger checkbooks equally interested in growth stocks, unprofitable tech startups have done well on their recent debuts.
Those who make money did even better, putting aside certain outliers like Snowflake.
After a confidential filing, Affirm waits for a response from the SEC on its filing and then has the option to file a non-confidential S-1 when it is ready. There's no set schedule here, but once the company's numbers are released we will look into them. Affirm joins other newer companies like Palantir, who initially submitted their public offers in confidence before they are later released.
