Subscription box service Stitch Fix finally went public today, in what is the first—and only—female-led tech exit of 2017. Its stock is already up 13%, just hours into its first day of trading. Stitch Fix had priced its initial public offering at $15 a share and raised $120 million, putting its valuation at around $1.5 billion.
This IPO is atypical for a few reasons, the most obvious being that CEO Katrina Lake is at its helm. It’s rare that you see a female-run company go public—less than 8% of IPOs this year were led by women, per Recode—but it’s rarer still for it to be a tech exit. Stitch Fix is also set apart by its profitability, recording revenue of nearly $1 billion during the last fiscal year, and its moderate capital; the company had raised just $42 million in funding prior to its IPO.
“It’s not surprising to see SFIX strong out of the gate in its public market debut,” Goodwater Capital managing partner Eric Kim said in a statement. “In our most recent consumer research, 54% of survey respondents who used the service expect to increase usage of Stitch Fix over time.”
We’ll see if that continues to be the case now that Stitch Fix is a public company.
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