By
Chimamanda U. Martha
May 2nd, 2024
The move by Affirm to debut on the stock exchange through its recently announced IPO comes as one of the many public listings recorded in 2020.
San Francisco based Financial Technology company Affirm Holdings Inc has made a move for its Initial Public Offering (IPO) through a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As reported by TechCrunch, the recent growth in the revenues of the consumer-centric Affirm as well as its slimming losses helps back up the company’s push towards an IPO.
Per the company’s financials, Affirm has significantly grown its numbers from the level it was at the beginning of its 2019 fiscal year which began back on July 1, 2019. Affirm recorded a revenue of $264.4 million as against $509.5 million in fiscal 2020, representing a 93% growth from the year-ago period.
The numbers have favored Affirm all around as it also grew its active users from 2.38 million in the September 30, 2019 quarter to over 3.88 million “active customers” users as of September 30, 2020. The growth the company has in part is attributable to the focus of the company to present need-based products that were geared at helping Americans wedge through the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a company who provides credit facilities to consumers, Affirm’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer Max Levchin wrote:
“We believe that consumers deserve absolute, immutable clarity in what they will pay and when it is due. We believe that the morality of each financial product offered to our customers is a key consideration, and is an essential part of the affirm brand. We put what is good for our customers first and will never benefit from their mistakes or misfortune.”
The deep business fundamentals in Affirm’s services is reflected in its growth as seen in recent times. Levchin in the SEC filing thus expressed his happiness with the company’s position to go public and believe that securing more funding will help drive the company’s missions to make financial products that change lives available to all.
Affirm plans to trade on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol ‘AFRM’. Affirm plans to issue out two classes of stocks including Class A common stock and Class B common stock which differ in their voting rights. The underwriters for the IPO include Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS), Allen & Company LLC, Credit Suisse Group AG (SWX: CSGN), and five others.
Affirm IPO: One of Many This Year
The move by Affirm Holdings Inc to debut on the stock exchange through its recently announced IPO comes as one of the many public listings recorded thus far in 2020. Among the notable public listings includes that of Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE: PLTR), with Airbnb also recently submitting its filing to go public.
A common denominator with most firms who debuted on stock exchanges this year amid the menacing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is that they have sustainable business models that saw an increase in demand during the most trying period of the decade.