Sustainable shoemaker and Silicon Valley darling Allbirds files for IPO

Allbirds is moving ahead with an initial public offering (IPO) as it expands beyond the wool trainers that have become the unofficial footwear of Silicon Valley.

The direct-to-consumer (DTC) sustainable shoe brand listed the size of the offering as $100m, a place holder that will change when terms of the share sale are set. The company was seeking to be valued at $2bn or more in a listing, Bloomberg News reported in June.

In its filing on Tuesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Allbirds said its net revenue for the six months ended June 30 rose 27% year on year to $118m. In the same period, its net loss widened to $21m from $9.5m. 

San Francisco-based Allbirds is after the playbook of other DTC brands that have broadened their audience by moving from digital marketing and e-commerce into brick-and-mortar and traditional advertising. 

Its pitch to shoe buyers emphasises the sustainable, natural materials used in its footwear, including eucalyptus fibre, castor bean oil and crab shells, as well as wool.

Sustainable IPO

The shoemaker is a B-Corp, which means its board is legally bound to balance profit and purpose and publicly share an impact report on how it’s improving society or the environment.

It laid out in Tuesday’s prospectus 19 criteria under six categories of how to make an equity offering sustainable and pledged to follow them.

Some of the criteria include disclosing a review at IPO while other efforts have to be reported annually, such as work on establishing a human rights policy, commitment to employee diversity and requiring suppliers to address environmental issues. 

Allbirds also said that investors’ ESG profiles contribute to the selection on which funds get allocated shares in the IPO process. 

While sustainability has been trending in the equity capital markets, disclosing these requirements in a legally binding document adds legitimacy to these pledges. 

That aside, the words “sustainable”, “sustainably” and “sustainability” appeared more than 200 times throughout the more than 200-page document.  

Sneaker listings

It’s not the only footwear maker trying to go public. On Holding, maker of the high-end On Running sport shoes brand backed by tennis star Roger Federer, also has filed for a US IPO.

The company is eying a $6bn to $8bn valuation, German language publication Bilanz reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

Allbirds raised $100m in a Series E round in September from large investment firms such as Franklin Templeton and T Rowe Price. According to data provider PitchBook, the company’s value edged down to an estimated $1.7bn from $1.73bn in January 2020.

The offering is being led by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chas and Bank of America. Allbirds plans for its shares to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol BIRD. 

Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com