UK-based online fashion retailer Farfetch filed yesterday to raise up to $100m in an initial public offering that would provide exits for media group Advance Publications and e-commerce company JD.com.
Farfetch runs an online marketplace that connects designers and creators of luxury fashion items with a base of some 2.3 million customers.
The company increased revenue 55% year on year to almost $268m in the first six months of 2018, though its net loss also grew, from $29.3m to $68.4m. It has raised a total of $702m in venture funding since it was founded in 2008.
Kadi Group, the JD.com subsidiary that invested $397m in Farfetch in June 2017, will maintain the size of its share in the company through an as yet unsized private placement concurrent to the offering.
The IPO filing did not reveal the size of the stakes held by any of Farfetch’s investors but listed Kadi, Index Ventures, Advent Private Equity Fund, Vitruvian Partners, Advance Publications and DST Global as owning 5% or more of the company.
Condé Nast, part of Advance, led Farfetch’s $20m series C round in 2013, investing alongside Advent Venture Partners, Index Ventures and E.ventures, before joining Advent and private investor Richard Chen in a $66m series D led by Vitruvian Partners the year after.
DST Global led an $86m series E round for the company in 2015 that included Condé Nast and Vitruvian Partners, and which valued it at $1bn. It raised $110m in a mid-2016 series F round co-led by IDG Capital, Eurazeo and Temasek and backed by Vitruvian Partners, at a $1.5bn valuation.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Securities, Allen & Company and UBS Securities have been appointed joint lead book-running managers for the offering, which is set to take place on the New York Stock Exchange.
The joint bookrunners are Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Deutsche Bank Securities and Wells Fargo Securities, while Cowen and Company and BNP Paribas Securities are co-managers.