Walmart-backed Ibotta chasing $2.3 billion valuation as tech IPOs keep rolling after Astera Labs and Reddit
An initial public offering by Ibotta, a digital promotions company whose backers include Walmart, could more than double the firm’s valuation compared with where it stood after a 2019 funding round.
Ibotta originally filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 22, right after the successful IPOs of the Astera Labs and Reddit, but it wasn’t until Monday that the firm provided details. The amended S-1 shows it will release more than 5.6 million shares that range from $76 to $84. Most of those will be coming from current stockholders, with only 2.5 million part of Ibotta’s offering.
Those roughly 5.6 million represent almost 21% of all shares. With 27,221,509 outstanding, pricing at the top of the range would put Ibotta’s valuation around $2.28 billion, meaning the IPO could generate as much as $472.5 million.
While Walmart holds 2.7 million shares, the biggest venture partner is Koch Disruptive Technologies, the investment arm of Koch holdings, with around 4.8 million. KDT led Ibotta’s 2019 series D funding round, which at the time valued the company around $1 billion.
When it comes to who controls Ibotta, two of the three major VCs—Walmart and Clark Jermoluk Founders Fund—said they aren’t selling any shares, and Koch Industries is just giving up just under 5% of its current 20% voting rights. Leach is putting up just 531,000 of his 4.26 million shares and will retain almost 70% control.
The Denver-based company, which will trade on the NYSE under IBTA, achieved profitability last year while generating $320 million in revenue. In a letter accompanying the filing, CEO Bryan Leach noted how Ibotta began just 12 years ago “in the windowless basement of an old fire station in downtown Denver.”
“Our capital-light business has allowed us to grow rapidly while increasing profitability over time and capturing the benefits of a multi-sided network,” he added.
Ibotta’s platform lets consumer brands market promotions and rebates. Among the 2,400 brands that use Ibotta are Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Campbell Soup, Kraft Heinz, and General Mills. In 2021, the company entered into a partnership with Walmart to showcase its digital promotions.
“The fact that [Ibotta] has become, with Walmart, more of an enterprise software play, basically being the back-end for its Walmart cash rewards program, that lends more credence to it,” Nicholas Smith, an analyst with Renaissance Capital, which provides pre-IPO research and manages two IPO-focused ETFs, recently told TechCrunch.
