Rent the Runway: A History-Making IPO
FemWealth Issue #34
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
After the COVID-19 pandemic almost killed the business, Rent the Runway became the first US company to go public with a female founder/CEO, COO, and CFO.
Co-founded in 2009 by Jennifer Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman, the “closet in a cloud” company allows users to rent, subscribe or buy products. With a current market cap of $1.38B, Rent the Runway was among the retail pioneers of the rentership society.
“It's not just a financing round for us. Today actually provides us with all of the capital that we need to grow, to reach profitability, and to significantly deliver our business.
Women lack capital ... and I hope that our IPO is a step forward for all women-led companies. This is an extremely disruptive business—and it's a capital intensive business. We need warehouses, we need clothing, we need technology, we need data. If you think about other capital-intensive businesses that have disrupted industries—like Spotify, like Netflix, like Uber—those businesses in advance of their IPO raised billions, if not tens of billions of dollars. And what it gave those businesses was the ability to actually not only dream big, but execute big and scale and have permanence even before their IPO.
So that is what I want for women: The opportunity to have these huge ideas and visions and the capital to actually see it through. That is what we achieved with our IPO today. But thousands more women should have that opportunity."
- Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway's cofounder and CEO (via Fortune)
In its public-market debut on Nasdaq, Rent the Runway has raised $357 million, pricing 17 million shares at $21 each, at the top end of its expected range.
Hyman plans to bring the business to profitability by increasing brand awareness and pushing for broader adoption of its subscription-based services.
Read more:
Why Rent the Runway’s CEO believes its $357 million IPO is a ‘step forward’ for female founders
Here’s What The Cofounders Of Rent The Runway Are Worth As The Clothing Rental Company Goes Public
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Thank you for reading FemWealth!
Wish you a lovely Sunday and an amazing week ahead!
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth