With so much going on in the city’s thriving ecosystem, it is easy to miss some of the happenings in the space. We keep you abreast of a few of things that you may have missed in NYC Tech News this week including the fundings, exits, and events.
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Meal kit subscription service startup, Blue Apron has filed its paperwork for its initial public offering. The stock will trade under the ticket “APRN” on the NYSE. According to the S1 filing, the startup had revenues of $795M last year which resulted in a loss of $55M. The company is on pace to post revenues slightly shy of $1B for the year based on first quarter revenue results of $245M, up significantly YOY. The company will have three classes of stock to keep control within the hands of the founders and investors.
A number of articles have indicated that the future for a public Blue Apron will be difficult due to increasing marketing spend for customer acquisition and increased competition, suggesting that investors should steer clear of the stock. We’d like to remind them that Amazon is now a $481B company with a PE ratio of 189 that continuously lost money until a few quarters ago. We’d also like to remind these folks that a stock’s price is independent of its core business and some investors will continue to pay for this kind of growth. We’ll also go on the record and state that APRN will outperform recent NYC tech IPOs (OnDeck Capital, Etsy) in the public markets.
Blue Apron founded in 2012, originally named Petridish Media, by Ilia Papas, Matt Salzberg, Matthew Wadiak has raised $193.8M across 5 rounds from investors that include Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity Investments, Stripes Group, Box Group, and First Round Capital.
TouchBistro, the restaurant point of sale platform, has raised $16.3M in Series C funding led by Napier Park Global Capital Recruit Co., Ltd, Kensington Capital Partners Limited, Relay Ventures and BDC IT Venture Fund. Founders Alex Barrotti and Geordie Konrad have raised $35.4M to date.
Anvyl, the online supply platform, raised $2.5M in Angel funding from undisclosed investors for their first round of funding.
Applied Data Finance, the company assisting the underbanked consumer, has raised $6.5M in a Convertible Note round of funding from undisclosed investors. This is the company’s third round of funding.
Boom Fantasy, the in game fantasy sports company, has raised $3.4M in Seed funding led by Founders Fund with participation from Ben Harburg. The company has successfully raised their fourth round of funding to date.
Streamroot, Next-generation HTML5 video technology, has raised $2.5M in Seed funding from Partech Ventures. The company has raised $5M to date.
Heartbeat, the company rewarding authentic millennial women, has raised $1.36M in Seed funding from undisclosed investors for the company’s second round of funding.
