Eyewear maker plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.
Eyewear maker Warby Parker Inc. said Tuesday it plans to go public through a direct listing, making the company the latest to shirk the traditional public-offering process.
The direct-to-consumer company in June confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering.
Direct listings differ from traditional initial public offerings in that companies take their shares to the stock market directly. Companies are able to save money that in a more traditional IPO would be shelled out to investment banks. This option to go public isn’t as common as traditional IPOs.
Cryptocurrency exchangeCoinbase Global Inc., data-mining companyPalantir Technologies Inc.and streaming platformSpotify Technology SAwent publicthrough the direct-listing route.
For the six months ended June 30, Warby Parker had $270.5 million in revenue with losses of $20.4 million. The company generated revenue that totaled $393.7 million last year with a loss of $55.9 million. In 2019, it had $370.5 million in revenue and a loss of $57.5 million.
While the company chose to close all its stores in March 2020 amid the spread of Covid-19, the company’s executives said sales continued to be buoyed throughout the pandemic by online shoppers.
The company said in its filing that 60% of its 2020 sales came from online, and e-commerce sales made up half of its total sales in the first six months of this year.
Warby Parker, which counts investment firm Tiger Global Management LLC and private-equity firm Durable Capital Partners among its bigger backers, raised $245 million from private investors last fall, snagging a $3 billion valuation.
New York-based Warby Parker was founded in 2010 by Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, both of whom serve as the company’s co-chief executives. The company offers a range of prescription glasses and contacts. While launched as an e-commerce platform where it shipped customers various eyeglasses they could try on, the company laterexpanded to bricks-and-mortar locations. It had 145 retail stores as of June 30.
The company plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WRBY.
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