It’s been a little while…but I’m back. And I thought what better way to return than
to talk about the next wave of upcoming IPOs…but not just any IPOs, I’m looking at huge,
mainstream companies that have been making moves that could lead them to finally pull
the trigger on going public sooner rather than later.
Hey everyone, welcome to Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise…for anyone new here, I’m Kevin.
And if you’re not new here, well then, I want to remind you that I’m Kevin…because
I know it’s been awhile since my last video and I’m so glad that you guys have come
back. Let me say quickly for now, this break wasn’t planned, so I apologize for not giving
you guys a heads up, but I didn’t expect to not make a video for so long and I’ll
tell you more about why that happened at the end of the video if you’re interested. But
first, since I know that many of you that have been with me and the channel love hearing
about IPOs, I figured that I would cap my apology with a video on some of the top upcoming
IPOs that I know many of us are looking forward to.
And to get us started, let me give you an update on a company that we’ve talked about
before and that’s Instacart. Many of you are familiar with them as the company that
operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service through the use of its website and its mobile
app. And as we know, they were huge during the beginning of the pandemic when more people
were needing groceries as we were eating at home as restaurants were closed, but also
as people were nervous going into the stores. And that lead to huge growth in 2020, with
Instacart being reported to have generated approximately $1.5B in net revenue in 2020
and turning profitable on an adjusted basis for the last 3 quarters of 2020.
So I last talked about them a few months ago, and at that time I expected that they were
looking to go public fairly soon for a few reasons. One was, of course they just had
this major year of growth they could capitalize on, sort of like what DoorDash did with their
IPO, so the timing made sense. My thinking was that by waiting, they would be at risk
for having to show revenue decelerating, which I would expect to happen as more of the economy
was opening up in the spring. And then also at that time, we had heard that they selected
Goldman Sachs to head up their IPO. But, after what happened with DoorDash and Airbnb, there
were also reports they were considering a direct listing, like how Roblox switched their
plans up, and in that case, Instacart would just use Goldman as an advisor. And then to
go with that, early this year, they had a private fund-raising round, raising $265 million,
upping their valuation to $39B, which, by the way, was more than double from a round
in October of last year when they were valued at $17.7 billion. Now having watched companies
like Roblox and Coinbase holding private fundraising rounds right before registering for a direct
listing, I felt like they were getting close. Obviously that hasn’t happened yet…and
I’ll just say this for anyone new to the channel; if you’re not sure what a direct
listing is or how it’s different from a traditional IPO, I’ll link a video I made
earlier this year that tells you more about them in the description.
Now also back in March, we talked about how Instacart had just added Frank Slootman to
their board of directors, who is well known in investing circles for having taken 3 big
companies public, including last year’s darling Snowflake. Which again, was another
sign to me that an Instacart IPO or a direct listing could be imminent. But again, nothing
came as far as any concrete plans or filings. Well now, just recently Instacart seems to
making more moves to go public, and I say that because they’re making some changes
at the top, in hiring both a new CEO and new president. Now at first glance, big changes
at the top may not seem like a good time for the company to go public, so that could mean
that an IPO is not imminent. But when you consider that both of the women appointed
to those roles worked at Facebook at the time that company went public, then we start to
see how this could be the next step in transitioning to a public company. And it’s not like the
people they are replacing went anywhere, in fact one of them was the founder; they’ve
just moved into different roles with different focuses... and maybe some of those focuses
are looking to a public listing. Now as far as when an IPO or direct listing
will happen, I don’t have anything concrete. I’ve heard some recent rumors of a listing
in the 4th quarter of 2021, but personally, I could see this slipping into 2022 as the
two new executives get settled into their roles. Having said that, I would be really
surprised if an Instacart IPO didn’t happen at least by sometime next year at the latest.
And if that doesn’t happen, in my mind that would be concerning as to how to their business
is going as the pandemic’s effect on the economy weakens…I mean, nobody wants to
go into an IPO with declining financials, which is what I alluded to a couple of minutes
ago. Not saying that’s happening or going to happen, but the timing could be affected
by what’s happening in the economy. Okay, so that's the latest I have for you on an
Instacart IPO. Up next, we have a couple of companies that
there’s a lot of interest in. And I know that from many of you in your comments in
previous videos. So let’s talk about a huge one, in fact the one with the biggest valuation
we’ll talk about today and that’s Stripe. Now, if you're wondering why I didn’t leave
Stripe, as the most valuable company out there to the end, well, it’s because it’s probably
the one I’m least sure of when they could hold an IPO. But, I have to say that there’s
one reason why I think it could come sooner than later, and I’ll tell you why in a minute.
But first let’s talk a little bit about Stripe and why a Stripe IPO would be huge.
First of all, Stripe is a financial technology, or fin-tech company, and as you know, those
types of companies are all the rage in the market. I keep thinking about when I first
talked about Upstart here before their IPO and what happened with that company’s stock…wow.
And then of course there are some of the more familiar names of these types of companies,
ones like PayPal and Square that move a lot of money around, but they’re not banks,
and therefore don’t have the same amount of costly regulations that traditional banks
have to deal with. So as far as Stripe, what do they do? Well,
while they’re expanding with other products and services, they’re primarily known for
processing hundreds of billions of dollars in e-commerce transactions every year, where
they charge 2.9 percent of the total transaction value and 30 cents for each payment transaction.
And that, in today’s increasingly digital world, adds up. According to reporting from
the Wall Street Journal, Stripe generated $7.4 billion in revenue in 2020—that was
up 70 percent from the previous year. So this was another company that benefited from consumer
behavior changes brought on by the pandemic, as, more people were buying more things online
while they were stuck in their homes. And, let me tell you, they count some big-name
companies as customers. Instacart, who we just talked about, they’re one. Google is
another. Wayfair, Peloton, Shopify, Amazon…all customers, and as you can imagine, all customers
with a lot of transactions. Now as you know, there are other payment processing
companies out there. So they do have competition, but it may not be as direct as it might appear.
For instance, PayPal, with its early relationship with eBay focuses on online payments that
focuses more on individuals setting up and using accounts to transfer money electronically,
whereas Square is focused more on in-store merchant payments. Stripe is a little different
as they focus on building developer-friendly code to add to a customer company's website
to process the payments. I probably simplified this a little, but I think it gives a little
better idea on how they’re somewhat different from each other.
Anyway, so that’s some background on Stripe. As far as an investment, well private investors
love them. In fact, according to Crunchbase, they are the U.S.’ most highly valued venture-backed
private company at a valuation of $95 billion. And Stripe counts Elon Musk and Peter Thiel
as early investors; a couple of guys that were very involved in PayPal at the beginning...
So I'm sure that fact alone gives further validation to the company if those guys wanted
to be involved with Stripe. Now as I said, I don’t know if a Stripe
IPO is imminent, because accessing capital has not been a problem for them, so it’s
not like they need to have an IPO. But there are a couple of things that might point to
an IPO coming up in the near future. One is that the company has been around since 2010,
so not old, but not new, and then when they got that latest valuation of 95 billion, that
came at a Series H round. That’s a lot of rounds, so they’re pretty mature as far
as a private company goes. And then the second reason I could see a Stripe IPO sooner than
later is that the company, much like we talked about with Instacart, they’ve been making
some moves on their team, hiring the CFO from publicly-traded GM to be their CFO last October
and they’ve also added a couple of new board members this year. Again, this doesn’t mean
that they’re going to be making a move soon, but there just comes a time when an IPO makes
sense, because it's one of the best ways for early investors to realize their gains and
I think, 11 years in, Stripe is at that point. So, I think we need to keep an eye on Stripe.
Now if any of you have heard anything else on Stripe plans to go public, definitely share
it with us in the comments. Okay, just real quick, if you’re enjoying
this video, please subscribe if you haven’t already done that, and also, please hit that
like button; not because I need to feel liked for my ego, although, that's nice, it just
helps me to know you like videos like this so I know to keep making them. Plus it also
helps YouTube to know to send it to more people, and as I’ve said before, the more we can
grow the channel, the more I’ll do here. And I’ll talk a little more about this at
the end of the video. Alright so the last company I want to talk
about is Rivian. Now this is a company I’ve personally had my eyes on for some years now
and there seems to be more and more buzz that a Rivian IPO could be just around the corner.
So let’s talk a little more about what the company does and then why we think an IPO
could be happening sooner than later. Now, if you’re into cars in general or investing
in EV’s, you probably already know that Rivian is a company that is looking to bring
both an electric truck called the R1T and an electric SUV called the R1S to market soon.
Now the company has actually been around since 2009, but really it was only after the first
4 years or so they put their focus on electric trucks and SUV’s. And they claim that their
vehicles are built to actually take on rugged terrains, so they’re not just trying to
build an EV that looks like a truck, but one that actually acts like one as well.
Now when I first saw pictures of the R1T and R1S a few years ago, I knew they had something
interesting; first of all, EVs that were being made were mostly traditional cars and yet
the market, particularly in the US, was going full-steam in on trucks and SUVs. So right
off the bat, I was interested in their strategy. Now when I first saw those pictures, I didn’t
love all of the design elements, but I still liked a lot of it. And this was well before
Tesla released images of the Cybertruck, which, I’m not going to lie, when I saw that truck,
I did not like it…at all. And I still don’t…even though I can appreciate if someone wants something
radically different, they would now have an option. So even though I was worried for Rivian
when I heard Tesla was coming out with their truck, but then after seeing it, I figured
people like myself that like traditional styling weren’t going to be too interested in the
Cybertruck which meant that they probably weren’t going to have to compete directly
with Tesla, as I just see them as really being too different and appealing to different customers.
Anyway, so in their development, I obviously wasn’t the only one intrigued with Rivian.
Amazon became a big investor in the company, and not just from an investment perspective
as they also ordered 100,000 vans to be delivered to them by 2030.
Another big name was Ford getting involved soon after Amazon. And I was wondering at
one point if Ford might try to just outright acquire them, particularly after it was reported
that Rivian was going to build an SUV for them under the Lincoln name. However, those
plans were later scrapped and now Ford is looking to now build that SUV on its own,
as they also have plans to build other electric versions of other vehicles, including its
flagship F-150 truck, so it’s an interesting relationship.
Now at this point, with production occurring in Illinois, Rivian is on track to come to
the US market with its R1T truck in September and its R1S SUV later in the fall. Now, as
far as the truck, they’ve had a couple of delays as it was announced originally for
June, then pushed back to July and now it’s looking like September so we’ll see if that
actually happens. The latest delay was reported to be pandemic-related with that involving
issues slowing down their facility construction, equipment installation, and vehicle component
supply, semiconductors in particular, and now we’ll have to see if that’s all been
resolved and if that September target holds. The good thing for Rivian is if they do start
deliveries in September, then they would beat Tesla to market as the Cybertruck was originally
slated for a 2021 release, but that has been delayed until sometime in 2022.
As far as some longer-range plans, the company is looking to finalize a second plant and
they seem to be focused on eventually delivering smaller models of its R1T and R1S for the
Chinese and European markets. Now as far as looking towards an IPO. It was
reported by Bloomberg that the company has brought on advisers including Goldman Sachs
and JPMorgan to help prepare for a Rivian IPO. As far as valuations go, the company
was worth over $27 billion as of a January fundraising round. But as to what the company
could be valued at for its IPO, if the rumors are true, it looks like the company could
be targeting a $70 billion valuation. Some rumors claim the IPO could happen as early
as next month to coincide with their first deliveries, but that might be a little optimistic
as far as a timeline. But we shall see. Anyway, so there’s a list of big, huge mainstream
upcoming IPOs…Instacart, Stripe and Rivian. Let us know in the comments which one you’re
most interested in. As for me, valuations aside, I think Stripe is probably the no-brainer
top choice, but I’m really most intrigued with Rivian as you might’ve been able to
tell as I was talking. Alright, so if you’ve hung in here this
long, I wanted to let you know why it’s been a couple of months since you last heard
from me and what that means going forward. Well I guess the main thing is that, I had
a lot going on and it was really getting hard to stay consistent with the videos when I
had other work-related things I had to do, and honestly was starting to feel a little
run down. For over a year, I had been putting out 2 to 3 videos a week, very consistently,
but I was able to do a lot of that while I was able to be at home more with everything
closed down. So of course, things are opening up and that was one part of it. The second
thing was that I was having some computer issues which took a lot of my time fixing
which I did, but I spent a lot more time doing that than I figured…but what are you going
to do? Now the third reason, was actually a good reason, as I had planned a little get
away…and I did get to do that. And while on vacation, I got engaged. Which was just
awesome….I can’t tell you how happy I am to take the next step with her; she’s
just the perfect person for me. Anyway, so that’s some of the things that came up.
But the crazy thing is that once I stepped away from the channel…and I did, like completely.
I didn’t check comments or even login, because I knew if I did, I would spend hours replying
to comments because you guys know I try my best to always do that, because I really do
enjoy the interaction, and I feel like I personally know a lot of you. But at the time, I figured
I’d skip a week or so and then be back and so I didn’t even put up a post, because
I figured no one but me would really have noticed I was even gone. But again, the crazy
thing is after even just after a couple of weeks away from YouTube, I felt like I wasn’t
sure how to get back into it. Like even though I did over 120-30 videos last year, I felt,
like. so rusty, and I wasn’t sure how to get back into it. I mean, I never thought
I wouldn’t get to doing a comprehensive Robinhood IPO video, but I didn’t; I was
just so burned out. And I even started to think, ‘is this something I can even keep
doing?’ Well, the thing is I came to an answer for myself and I’m back here today
because I really enjoy this channel and everyone in the community…in fact, I’m super proud
of it. And I say that for 2 reasons: one is that I have been humbled by having all of
you out there that have watched my videos, subscribed to the channel and interacted with
me in the comments. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned from you guys, and I hope
that’s been a two-way street…and I think it has been, because I’ve gotten so much
positive feedback which has really validated what I wanted to do here. The second reason
I’m so proud of this channel is because, probably…or even definitely…at the detriment
of getting more views and subscribers, I’ve stayed pretty true to who I am…I’ve not
hyped anything, I don’t tell you what you should do or not do, I just share the information
I have with you, throw in some of my own thoughts and hope you find value in it. And so, no,
I’m not giving up on this channel. Now going forward, I don’t think I’ll go 2 months
again before you hear from me, but I’m not going to put pressure on myself to put out
a set number of videos per week; it might vary based on whatever else I have going on
in life... And I'm sure you guys can relate to that. And, as a heads up, I’m probably
going to mix it up a little with some different types of videos; which all the Youtube gurus
say you shouldn’t do…they stay stick with your niche, or niche, but again, at the end
of the day, I want this channel to be about me and you and what we want to talk about,
not driven by the YouTube algorithm. Although, I will say I still would appreciate new subscribers
and likes... And really appreciate you guys sharing the video links to your social media
sites to help me grow But back to my main point, honestly, I get bored doing the same
things over and over, and while I’ll always have investing videos because I do enjoy that
and I know a lot of you are here because of these types of videos…I’m going to try
some different things and hopefully some of those things you’ll enjoy and learn from,
too. And I think, it’ll help me to stay a little fresher and not feel so much pressure
to cover every IPO that comes out, when I know a lot of them are companies that neither
you or I are much interested in. So anyway, just wanted to thank all of you
again. You guys are awesome. Hope you’re having a great summer and I look forward to
talking to you soon. Definitely sooner than later. Take care.