The e-commerce platform, bright light Casper, has planned to go public. According to data, the New York company raised around $340 million while in private. Moreover, it intends to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the banner “CSPR.” The S-1 filing of the company involves a $100 million figure for its capital raise. The company will require more money now as it will burn cash.
During the years of 2017 and 2018, Casper had record revenue of around $260 million and $358 million. This raised amount is way more than that raised by some other startups, like VTEX. This huge money has led to a growth of 42.6% in this year. Moreover, during the two years, Casper lost around $73.4 million and $92.1 million.
During the first three-quarter period, the company banked around $64.2 million in 2018 to $67.4 million in 2019. However, the losses of the company are rising, and its growth has slowed down. On the other hand, the operating cash burn of the company has been quite slow. It decreased from $84.0 million in 2017 to $72.3 million in 2018. Moreover, the company has slowed down its cash consumption in 2019 to just $29.7 million in the first three quarters.
The slow growth and losses of the company could affect its overall valuation. According to a recent estimate, the value of the company is $1.1 billion due to the new funding.
Although the margins are good for a non-software company, the firm spent around 73% of the profit last year on marking and sales. This indicates that Casper spent a considerable amount of growth, which came about 20% in 2019. This suggests that the growth will remain restricted as the company can’t spend too much on the line item. Now, a person might ask what the value of the company with slow growth and heavy loss is?
The adjusted losses of the company aren’t entirely satisfactory. When you look at the adjusted EBITDA, a profit metric, Casper only improved a bit in 2018, compared to the three quarters in 2019.
Casper has raised money from a lot of investors, like New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Hippeau, and IVP. The firm started its seed round and Series A round in 2014. However, at that time, NEA and Lerer were the most active backers.
The company raised around $55 million in 2015, followed by substantial funding of $170 million in mid-2017. Moreover, a $100 million came in 2019 that prepared it for the 2020 IPO.
The overall IPO is related to pricing. Moreover, it’s going to directly affect many other startups that compete with the company or have a similar business.
