Etsy
Ten years after its founding, the online marketplace for handmade goods went public in April. Etsy’s IPO represents much more than a cash prize, though: It brings validation to New York’s tech-startup scene, where IPOs are scarce (and where the last significant financial success was Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of N.Y.C.–based Tumblr in 2013). Because Etsy is a B Corporation—a company that follows social-good guidelines established by the not-for-profit B Lab—the public offering could also potentially fuel more interest among investors toward socially conscious companies. (Etsy offers employees paid time for volunteering, for example.) “Etsy’s strength as a business and community comes from its uniqueness in the world, and we intend to preserve it,” CEO Chad Dickerson said in a blog post the day of the IPO. “We don’t believe that people and profit are mutually exclusive.”
Milestones: Revenue growth remains strong: 44% in its first quarter and 56% last year. Of the more than 1,000 existing B Corporations, Etsy is only the second to go public. (The first was Boulder, Colorado–based Rally Software in 2013.)
Challenges: Investors worried about a bubble do not look kindly on unprofitable tech companies, as Etsy’s $36.6 million loss in its first quarter proved (its stock lost 20% of its value in a day); merchants are worried that the company will improve margins by taking a higher commission.
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“Etsy has become a touch point of debate for whether the human-centered craftsmanship we support is compatible with being a public company.”
— Chad Dickerson, CEO, Etsy, via the company’s blog
Coca-Cola
Milestones: Coca-Cola made waves last spring by serving Coke Zero from the first drinkable billboard ad.
Challenges: The company lost its 28-year NBA sponsorship to Pepsi in April, adding urgency to an austerity plan that included more than 1,500 job cuts.
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Droga5
“We want iconic stuff to work on, but we think you can be nice and do that too.”
— Susie Nam, General manager and head of accounts, Droga5
Milestones: Over the past year, ad agency Droga5 has landed big accounts like Toyota and upped its staff by 150. Its stirring gender-equality campaign “Not Here,” created for the Clinton Foundation, went viral.
Challenges: Yogurt giant and longtime Droga5 client Chobani announced in March that it’s moving marketing efforts in-house.
Buzz: ↑
Whole Foods
Milestones: In May, the company announced a chain of stores for budget-conscious millennials.
Challenges: Recent price-lowering efforts might not fend off Kroger and Walmart, which have launched cheap organic lines of their own.
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Bloomberg Philanthropies
“Once we get people to realize they really can protect themselves, then you get a lot more buy-in from the population.”
— Dr. Kelly Henning, Head of public health programs, Bloomberg Philanthropies
Milestones: The former New York City mayor’s not-for-profit announced in January that it would invest an additional $125 million in the Global Safety Initiative, giving aid to 10 cities around the world—including Shanghai and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—to build more pedestrian-friendly roadways and run media campaigns to raise awareness about preventing accidents.
Challenges: Citizens in impoverished areas often view traffic accidents, which kill an estimated 1.24 million people per year, as unpreventable “acts of God.”
Buzz: ↑
iRobot
Milestones: Buoyed by a new line of telepresence robots—including the Ava 500, which currently roams the offices of AT&T—iRobot’s Q1 revenue and earnings beat expectations. According to FCC documents, a robotic lawn mower is in development.
Challenges: Radio astronomers have already rallied against the lawn mower, claiming that the radio-frequency fence it uses to keep from wandering away interferes with tools the scientists use to track the birth of stars.
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