Peloton Pedalling Towards Public Offering

On August 27, 2019, Peloton Interactive, Inc. (Peloton), a New York-based interactive fitness company, filed a prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Peloton has initially set a fundraising target of US$500 million, and plans to use the proceeds from the IPO mainly for working capital and other general corporate purposes. According to the prospectus, Peloton is going public to increase its capitalization and financial flexibility and to enable access for both the company and its stockholders to the public equity markets.

With current membership of over 1.4 million, Peloton describes itself as having pioneered connected, technology-enabled fitness, and the streaming of immersive, instructor-led boutique fitness classes to its members anytime, anywhere. Peloton has referred to itself as an innovation company that has “disrupted the fitness industry”. The company currently sells three main products: a stationary exercise bicycle, a treadmill and a “Peloton Membership”, which is a monthly subscription allowing users to stream Peloton classes.

In August of 2018, Peloton raised US$550 million in its Series F funding round at a US$4.15 billion valuation, bringing the total amount raised to date by the company to nearly US$1 billion.

Though the IPO is expected to be one of the year’s biggest, the prospectus revealed that Peloton is not currently profitable. For fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019, the prospectus reveals revenues of US$219 million, US$435 million and US$915 million, respectively. This represents 99% and 110% in year-over-year growth, respectively. However, Peloton’s bottom line numbers are not as impressive, as its losses are currently outpacing revenues. For its 2019 fiscal year, the company incurred net losses of almost US$200 million, representing a near 300% increase year-over-year.

As of the date of this blog, Peloton has not yet set a closing date for their IPO.

Author: Christine Macdonald, 2019/2020 Articling Student-at-law