FT : Turkish car market goes into reverse as reforms start to bite

Turkish car market goes into reverse as reforms start to bite
Sellers are cutting prices for big-ticket products once seen as a financial refuge from high inflation

Nezih Allıoğlu is deploying a strategy to sell cars at his Peugeot showroom in Ankara that would have been extraordinary only a few months ago: big discounts.

Allıoğlu, chair of Göral Otomotiv, said his dealership off a motorway in the Turkish capital was doling out discounts of 10 to 15 per cent on new cars — the biggest incentives his group has offered in five years and the first price cuts since 2020.  

The second-hand car market has taken an even bigger hit, with used vehicle marketplace Otomerkezi.net seeing prices cut by up to 20 per cent in the three months to the end of November.

This slowdown in Turkey’s car industry is one of the clearest signs of how an economic overhaul after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s re-election in May is cooling the $900bn economy. Car sales had surged in recent years as scorching inflation and low interest rates sent Turks rushing to find assets that would hold their value.

“Before [the election] you were waiting in line for three months [to purchase a new car],” said Allıoğlu. “Now you get your car in a week or 10 days.”

A top executive at a major Turkish car distributor, who asked not to be named, added: “The last two years were extraordinarily good, now it is returning to normal.”


Turks have in recent years turned to purchasing cars, home appliances and gold as stores of value because inflation, which peaked at over 85 per cent in 2022 and remains above 60 per cent, and a falling lira have seriously eroded the value of their savings.

Erdoğan’s insistence on holding interest rates at ultra-low levels turbocharged the idea of cars as investments because interest rates on bank deposits were far below the rate of inflation. By the same token, borrowing costs for car loans were very low when compared with inflation.

The rush among local savers to buy cars as investments, combined with the lingering effects of supply-chain disruptions related to the pandemic, led to a big imbalance between the roaring demand for vehicles and the limited supply available, said industry executives.


Retail car sales jumped to 841,000 in the first 11 months of 2023, compared with 593,000 over the whole of 2022, according to Turkey’s Automotive Distributors’ and Mobility Association, a trade body. Sales for 2023 were the highest in at least a decade.

Prices for vehicles in Turkey have surged 214 per cent in the past two years as Turks clamoured to buy cars, data from the country’s statistical agency showed. The rate of price increases was particularly vigorous around the May election when Erdogan’s government launched a wave of stimulus measures to prop up the economy before voting day. In July alone, prices rose 16 per cent from the previous month.

“When there was 80 per cent inflation and 25 per cent deposit interest, everyone wanted to buy goods. That’s why they came to us to buy three to five cars and keep them in their garage,” said Allıoğlu.

Turkey’s new economic management team, which was appointed in June, has launched a sweeping overhaul in policy to cool consumer demand for goods such as cars and tame inflation.


The central bank, led by former Goldman Sachs banker Hafize Gaye Erkan, has raised the benchmark interest rate from 8.5 per cent in June to 42.5 per cent, as Erdoğan has at least temporarily abandoned his long-held objection to high borrowing costs.

Other policy changes were also made, including a tripling of taxes on petrol and curbs designed to slow the rate of growth in car loans.

Interest rates on consumer vehicle loans have shot up from 25 per cent before May’s election to 37 per cent, central bank data showed. Although that is still below the current inflation rate, growth in vehicle loans, which had reached an inflation-adjusted annual rate of nearly 300 per cent in February, has cooled to just 61 per cent, according to Turkey’s banking regulator.

At the same time, the returns Turks can earn simply by leaving their liras in the bank has more than tripled from April’s level to reach 38 per cent, significantly reducing the appeal of purchasing cars and other goods as investments.

Erkan noted in a recent interview with Turkish newspaper Hurriyet that as a result of the new economic policies, “we see a decline in [markets for] products such as automobiles, white goods and furniture, which are most affected by monetary policy”.

The car executive said: “When [consumers] think inflation is going lower, then demand [for cars] goes lower.” He added that with higher deposit rates “it makes more sense to leave money in the bank rather than buying things like cars”.

Business Of Fashion : Salomon’s XT-6 Sneakers Help ‘Sportstyle’ Division to Sale

Salomon’s XT-6 Sneakers Help ‘Sportstyle’ Division to Sales of $165 Million Through Q3
The sportswear brand surpassed $1 billion in revenue in 2022, buoyed by soaring demand for its fashion-forward performance products, parent-company Amer Sports’ IPO filing revealed.


Salomon Sportstyle — the division responsible for the outdoor brand’s fashion-forward adaptations of its trail running footwear and apparel — generated over $165 million in sales for the nine months ended September 30, 2023, up from $80 million in 2022, according to parent-company Amer Sports’ US IPO registration published Thursday.

The Sportstyle division is now the fastest growing segment of the Salomon businesses, which began in 1947 as a family-owned manufacturer of ski equipment in the French Alps, the filing said.

Overall, Salomon posted revenue of over $1 billion in 2022, up from $961.2 million the previous year.

Salomon’s booming Sportstyle sales are predicated on the soaring popularity of its XT-6 sneaker line, originally built for trail and ultra-marathon running. Over the last two years, XT-6 sneakers — which carry the same technology as the original trail running shoes, and are enhanced in fashion-forward colourways — have become a hit among the streetwear community and mainstream consumers, whilst also driving sales on the secondary market and landing several celebrity placements. In 2023, Salomon was the second-fastest growing brand on resale platform StockX, with trades up 202 percent year-on-year.

The Sportstyle division has also become one of the fashion industry’s most prolific collaborators in recent years, releasing co-designed products with brands such as Maison Margiela, Sandy Liang and Palace. The company’s evolution from a niche outdoor equipment manufacturer into a fully-fledged fashion brand was crowned when Rihanna wore MM6 Maison Margiela X Salomon Cross Low sneakers during her Super Bowl halftime show performance in February 2022.

In addition to Salomon, Amer Sports holds a roster of sports and outdoor brands, including Arc’teryx and tennis and basketball equipment company Wilson. A successful debut will propel ambitions to increase revenue at each of these three businesses to over €1 billion ($1.1 billion) annually — Arc’teryx recorded sales of $952.6 million in 2022, according to Amer Sports’ IPO registration. The company did not break out annual results for Wilson, but the company saw sales of $866.3 million in the first nine months of 2023, according to the filing. Amer Sports is aiming to grow its total annual revenue to €5 billion. The company generated $3.5 billion in 2022.

The Finnish holding company was acquired in late 2018 for $5.2 billion by a consortium of buyers led by Anta Sports, China’s largest sportswear company. Its owners also include Tencent, private equity firm Fountain Vest Partners and Lululemon founder Chip Wilson. Wilson has been nominated to sit on the company’s board following the IPO, the filing showed.

While Amer Sports’ filing did not disclose the price and size of its upcoming initial public offering, Bloomberg reported in September the group aims to raise up to $3 billion at a $10 billion valuation.

WWD : 2024 Could Be Another Darwinian Year for Legacy Media

2024 Could Be Another Darwinian Year for Legacy Media
There is still value in viral moments and events, but the social media economy is not going to sustain a top-down industry that is still shedding journalists and influence.

In November, Popular Science revealed that it would stop publishing its digital magazine. The news came three years after the 151-year-old magazine discontinued its print issue in what turned out to be a futile stab at “sustainability,” a euphemism for our grim era of legacy media bloodletting.

The demise of the PopSci, which debuted in 1872 and included articles written by Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur, made but a ripple in the vast ocean of media evaporation. The year started with pink slips at Vox Media, publisher of New York Magazine. (Penske Media, owner of WWD, is the largest single shareholder at Vox.) BuzzFeed News, once viewed as the prototype for digital native news, was shuttered. Vice Media, an erstwhile Wall Street darling with a bloated evaluation, filed for bankruptcy. The New York Times last summer eliminated its once-storied sports section, bouncing dozens of writers and editors out of their jobs and announcing that it would instead rely on sports coverage from the writers at The Athletic, the digital vertical the Times acquired in 2022 for $550 million. Weeks later, Hearst Magazines rolled out its latest restructuring, which resulted in pink slips for more than 40 journalists, including at Elle and Seventeen.

Even NPR — a comparatively lean nonprofit — laid off more than 100 staffers and canceled a slew of programs and initiatives amid a budget shortfall of more than $30 million. And Condé Nast — the once-poster child for high-spending media conglomerates where staff at titles like Vogue, GQ and The New Yorker, among others, seemed to have endless expense accounts — in October revealed its latest workforce reduction of 5 percent (or about 300 employees), including at The New Yorker, which had heretofore escaped the downsizing that has plagued its sister magazines.

The current shake-up also resulted in the restructuring of Condé Nast Entertainment — the film and production studio created in 2011 to convert its journalism into entertainment projects. Its five branded studios — for The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wired and GQ — remain, but the anticipated windfall from Hollywood mostly never materialized. Agnes Chu, the well-regarded Disney executive who was hired in 2020 to run Condé Nast Entertainment, exited the company amid the reorganization.

Meanwhile, newspapers, especially local papers, are on life support. About 2.5 a week closed last year and since 2005, nearly 2,900 of them have folded, according to the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. Their demise continues apace as the U.S. barrels toward a presidential election that could return Donald Trump, whose untruths were exhaustively documented by the media during his first volatile term, to the White House. During his presidency, Trump’s near-daily norm-busting was a boon for national news organizations. The Washington Post doubled the size of its newsroom in the years after Jeff Bezos bought the paper in 2013, and digital subscriptions tripled at the Post and The New York Times during Trump’s presidency. CNN, which breathlessly covered Trump’s 2016 campaign, saw record revenue during his term in office.

But so far, Trump’s current run for the top office in the land has not produced another so-called Trump bump. While the Times, which has invested heavily in apps and games, has added subscribers since Trump left office, the Post has weathered a subscriber exodus and, last December, it shuttered its Sunday style magazine after 30 years. CNN, which also weathered a rocky transition during parent Warner Bros.’ acquisition by Discovery, has seen its ratings and profits dip.

But legacy media has been in the throes of a contraction, and attempted reinvention, well before the current digital advertising downturn sent so much red ink spilling across balance sheets. The aspirations of Condé Nast Entertainment were in part a hedge against old revenue models. The Times has attempted to meet the moment by diversifying — snapping up Wirecutter and Wordle and investing in its Cooking app. The Wall Street Journal, which has maintained a paid-subscription model for its digital content from the outset, saw its digital-only subscribers grow by 10 percent in 2023 to 3.4 million.

There is still value in content and events that drive outsize interest; Barbie ($1.44 billion box office gross), the tours and subsequent concert films of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, the spectacle of the Met Gala. It’s why Vogue’s Anna Wintour has poured resources into minting Vogue World as a new signature event that potentially can drive engagement and sponsor dollars. (This year’s Vogue World event will take place June 23 at Place Vendôme in Paris, a month ahead of the city’s hosting of the 2024 Summer Olympics.) In a year-end note, Journal parent Dow Jones claimed that WSJ Magazine cover stories on Travis Kelce, Angelina Jolie and Dave Hollis “drove a surge in digital subscriptions.” These big, zeitgeist-y moments are the antithesis of the current Substack model, where journalists can turn a profit by speaking to a small clutch of like-minded, paying subscribers because they have virtually no overhead.

But new media economics — e-commerce, affiliate revenue, viral social content, cutting costs to the bone — are not going to save legacy media.

Because the current scenario – thousands of employees, a top-down corporate infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of square feet of physical office space, an aging paying subscriber base supporting a product for which there is not enough demand — is probably not sustainable without even more retrenchment. The question for legacy media is how to consistently mint quality content that can be scaled into a profit-generating business that will thrive in a future that is sure to generate even more competition for consumer attention and dollars.

Unfortunately, all signs point to 2024 as another year of downsizing as legacy media attempts to find a manageable cost-benefit ratio. But perhaps 2024 will also be the year the industry begins to collectively emerge from its natural selection hangover. To paraphrase Charles Darwin, that onetime contributor to a magazine that last year became all but extinct, the world is a dangerous place and only those best adapted to their environment will survive.

WWD : The Return of Physical Fashion Rentals in L.A.

The Return of Physical Fashion Rentals in L.A.
“We're if Soho House, Barneys New York and Blockbuster had a baby," said Max Feldmann of Wild West Social House — a new, membership-based concept shop in West Hollywood.

Experiential fashion retail is nothing new. But Max Feldmann and Kyle Julian Skye are bringing it to the rental space — and IRL.

“We’re not just an archive house,” said Feldmann, former men’s buyer at Fred Segal. “We’re if Soho House, Barneys New York and Blockbuster had a baby.”

The duo — behind vintage platforms Recess Worldwide and Middleman Store, respectively — teamed to open a physical rental business in Los Angeles in 2023: Wild West Social House. Located in West Hollywood, it’s a membership-based concept offering services like delivery, pickup and same-day tailoring. There’s a social element, too, with a rooftop for hangouts, and they’ve partnered with neighboring Dialog Cafe for drink and food orders.

“We just kind of want to return to the actual luxury experience of making a day out of going to a store and enjoying it and being able to soak up some sun on the roof,” said Skye. “And being able to eat or have a bite with your friends and catch up and then come down and look through your clothes and just bring that kind of slower, more, you know, consumer-tailored vision to a boutique.”

They currently have more than 50 members, catering to professional stylists, celebrities and fashion lovers, with a small waitlist joining at the end of January. Both Feldmann and Skye have an eye for curation, bringing together a globally sourced selection of specialty items; pieces, which are also available for purchase, include finds like a silk embroidered “Life is Pain” top from Alexander McQueen’s fall 1996 “Dante” collection and ’70s “Punk Gang” muslin shirt by Vivienne Westwood.

Membership has three tiers: $299 a month for six items (up to three items per pull, or $3,000 in total value) for three days, $499 a month for 12 items (up to four items, or $4,000, with free delivery and pick-up in L.A.) for four days, and $999 a month with no limit on items (up to 15 per pull, both accessories and shoes included) for 10 days, with all services including temporary tailoring.

They plan to launch an app that would allow members to track their rentals, new in-store arrivals, order the services, and so on.

“You’d log in as a member, and we’d already have all of your sizes,” explained Feldmann. “We have your clients’ sizes, and so you’re actually able to filter in size and you’re not going through thousands of pieces. You’re really just going through sizes that would potentially work for you or your clients.”

“We consider this a million-dollar wardrobe for less than the price of a Prada T-shirt,” added Skye.

For Janet Mandell, business began in Chicago in 2018 and she’s grown to expand to L.A. and New York in 2023.

“I don’t follow trends,” said Mandell, whose L.A. showroom is on North La Cienega Boulevard, south of Santa Monica Boulevard. “I do follow the color palettes. And I do follow what people are buying, but that doesn’t necessarily relate to what we buy. I guess our focus is really vintage and eveningwear.”

On a busy day, L.A. brings in about 10 clients a day. The assortment is high-end, from Chanel to Oscar de la Renta, with contemporary brands like Acne and Dries Van Noten. While Chicago seeks more conservative looks — gowns for galas, mostly — in L.A. “it’s all about cutout. It’s all about showing skin,” Mandell went on. “It’s mostly celebrities that come in, stylists. We do cater to a lot of influencers, style-makers, socialites. A lot of girls in L.A. want over-the-top vintage gowns or, you know, something that’s sexy.”

Pricing starts at $300 for a four-day rental, with shoes at $150. There’s an additional showroom fee of $75 an hour and a $50 non-refundable styling fee.

“Because of COVID[-19], everybody wants to get more glammed up and dressed up than they usually do,” Mandell said of clients. “They want to really make a statement. They don’t want black. They really want colorful, outstanding pieces.”

She hopes to open in Miami this year and Dallas in 2025.

“I would say my exit plan is 10 years, and I would love to sell to a big conglomerate fashion house, whether it be Kering, LVMH,” she said. “I do have an exit plan.”

L.A. native Haile Lidow of Lidow Archive has a passion for vintage — no matter the designer name. She gravitates toward the fantasy.

“I do kind of err on the side of more like kooky and eccentric,” she said, accumulating nearly 9,000 pieces.

Her showroom is in the hills of Los Feliz, where regulars have been celebrity stylists, costume designers and photographers. She’s currently focused on attracting a new clientele: “I would really like to also just work with people who are going to events, going to weddings, just love clothes and want to have things fun to wear that they know that they don’t need to buy because they only want to wear it to one thing.”

Lidow Archive has become the go-to destination for unique finds — which have found themselves on the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus on the stage, music videos, red carpets and photo shoots. Prices range from $40 to $1,300 an item (the latter being a Gucci by Tom Ford spring 2000 one-shoulder rhinestone dress), with a $250 rental minimum per pull.

“I remember seeking out things and saving up to buy them when I was, like, 11,” said Lidow, who has a background in both fashion at Vogue and public relations at Black Frame. “And, you know, I still have them in the archives now.”

Her latest obsession? “I’ve been really, really into suits and matching sets. I’ve been looking for 1970s three-piece suits,” she said.

An item she’s particularly known for is the sky-high Marc Jacobs “Kiki” platform, found in many styles and colors. “I really love collecting.”

WWD : Central Retail Could Take a Larger Slice of Selfridges Following Signa’s C

Central Retail Could Take a Larger Slice of Selfridges Following Signa’s Collapse
The Thai retail group, which already has a majority stake in the operating company that controls Selfridges, could take control of the retailer's property division following the collapse of its JV partner Signa.

LONDON — Central Retail will invest further in the British department store only if the conditions are right, the company said in a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Central Retail is the publicly traded division of Central Group, the majority owner of Selfridges, which it purchased two years ago alongside the troubled property giant Signa Holding.

On Friday, Central Retail said it would assess future investment opportunities based on “strategic fit, appropriate pricing and optimal timing.”

The company, which is thought to be mulling a further investment in Selfridges, said any business venture “must contribute positively to the interests of the company” and all shareholders.

Central clarified its position following speculation in the U.K. media that it might buy Signa’s remaining stake in the store.

Two years ago, Signa and Central joined to acquire Selfridges for a reported 4 billion pounds. They each took a 50-50 stake in the retailer, which they split into two businesses, a property one and a retail one. The latter pays rent to the former.

As reported last week, Signa Prime Selection AG, which has stakes in retailers including Selfridges, KaDeWe, and Karsdadt, has filed for bankruptcy and submitted its restructuring plan to a Vienna court.

After Signa’s troubles surfaced, Central took control of the operating company that oversees the Selfridges stores in the U.K.; Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland, and De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands, which are all part of the Selfridges Group.

Central has said that “regardless of the position of our JV partner,” it is committed to supporting all of its European luxury stores. “We will ensure that they have all the backing they require to continue to operate as normal.”

The property company which owns the Selfridges’ Oxford Street and Manchester Exchange stores is still 50-50 owned by Signa and Central. It is understood that Central still has to decide whether it will take full ownership of that company following Signa’s insolvency.

Separately, earlier this week Fitch downgraded Signa’s Development division to “D” from “C” following its declaration of insolvency in Vienna in late December.

Fitch said Signa’s “constrained liquidity, including nonpayment to suppliers, caused a halt to some of its development projects. This has led to contagion effects on other Signa entities including Signa Development.”

Fitch noted that Signa Development plans to continue operations and repay its debt according to its presented restructuring plan, which is scheduled for approval at its creditors’ meeting in March.

The Information : Apple, iMessage and Antitrust

Apple, iMessage and Antitrust

Here’s a question: How much would Apple suffer if it opened up iMessage to Android? The widespread assumption—including within Apple itself—is that by removing a major impediment to people using Android, such a move would boost sales of the devices based on the Google operating system, at the expense of the iPhone. But that may not be as true as it was in the past. Consumers’ attachment to their iPhones is now so strong, and the array of devices of a similar quality is so limited, that the long-term impact on sales may prove to be much less than people think.

This may become more than just a thought experiment, given the growing signs that Apple’s iMessage lockdown could be the focus of a government antitrust lawsuit. On Friday The New York Times reported that the Justice Department is nearing the conclusion of a long-running antitrust investigation into Apple. Among the issues under scrutiny, The Times reported, is how Apple uses iMessage to keep competitors at bay. This has been a hot issue lately: Apple’s recent actions to block an app by the startup Beeper, which offered Android users an iMessage workaround, sparked calls for antitrust action from lawmakers last month.

Whether Apple would lose such a case is, of course, far from certain. It’s not exactly clear that Apple is doing anything illegal by keeping iMessage for its own products: After all, Apple created the iPhone and iMessage. It shouldn’t be punished because those are popular services. It may not seem fair that Apple doesn’t allow iMessage to interoperate with Android, but businesses don’t have to play fairly. If you don’t like the iPhone, you can use an Android happily: You just can’t get the benefits of iMessage. The same holds true for other things Apple does that the DOJ is reportedly investigating, such as ensuring that the Apple Watch works better with the iPhone than other, non-Apple devices do.

Even so, a lengthy antitrust lawsuit wouldn’t be great news for Apple. It would create uncertainty and distraction for management, among other things. Perhaps Apple should examine how much of a business impact it would really suffer by opening up iMessage, if doing so could short-circuit a lawsuit. In fact, by putting the phone on a level playing field with Android as regards services, Apple could demonstrate the true superiority of its device.

CrunchBase : 15 Companies We Think May Actually, Really, Finally, Maybe Go Publi

15 Companies We Think May Actually, Really, Finally, Maybe Go Public In 2024

Will 2024 be the year IPOs finally come roaring back, after a more than two-year lull? That seems unlikely, but then again, all venture-backed startups have to exit sometime, so at least some companies will likely decide to head to the public markets this year.

With that in mind, we once again offer up some ideas for companies we think would be top contenders when the public markets eventually reopen for new tech listings.

Enterprise tech and cybersecurity
Arctic Wolf: Late in 2022, the Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based cybersecurity company raised $401 million in convertible notes led by existing investor Owl Rock Capital. Convertible notes work like a short-term loan, but these notes are repaid to the investor at a later point in equity — i.e. after an IPO — typically at a discount. However, there has to be an event to turn those notes to equity. That’s why we’re thinking after more than a year, maybe it’s time for the managed security provider to test the public market waters. Arctic Wolf is seasoned — it was founded in 2012 — and in July 2021 raised $150 million in a Series F, which took its valuation from $1.3 billion to $4.3 billion. At that time, then-CEO Brian NeSmith said an IPO was likely the next logical move. However, maybe that’s the problem — those valuations from 2021 are hard to reconcile now.
Databricks: If we keep putting Databricks on this list, eventually we’ll be right. In all honesty, we kinda doubt the San Francisco-based data and AI company will see an IPO in 2024. The simple reason is: it just doesn’t need to do it. The 10-year-old company has more than enough investors willing to support it in the private market, and who would go public when they don’t have to? But maybe this is a good time for an AI-related company to go public while investor appetite is there. The company hit a $43 billion valuation after raising a $685 million — per a filing — Series I led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates in September. The company talked about surpassing a milestone of $1 billion in annual revenue this summer and has in the past hinted coyly at a potential IPO. It also just made a huge acquisition this year, buying OpenAI competitor MosaicML for $1.3 billion. Databricks has significant investors to eventually appease — the company has raised more than $3.5 billion, per Crunchbase — as well as deep technology, as it creates tools and products to help companies view both structured and unstructured data in a single location without moving between different systems. Maybe 2024 will be the year.

Rubrik: This one may be a layup, but we’ll see. In September, Bloomberg reported cloud and data security startup Rubrik was interested in going public as early as the fourth quarter of 2023. That would make sense. The company is nearly a decade old and has raised significant cash from the likes of Microsoft, Bain Capital Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Last January, the company also reported it had surpassed $500 million in software subscription annual recurring revenue and appointed Mark McLaughlin, former Palo Alto Networks chairman and CEO, to its board of directors. Expanding your board with those that have knowledge of how to run a public company and hitting milestones can sometimes point toward an IPO.

ServiceTitan: The cloud-based software provider for residential and commercial HVAC, plumbing, electrical and other field-service businesses has been rumored to be sniffing around the public markets for a while now. In September of 2021, Reuters reported the company was talking to investment banks and law firms for a potential IPO. Months before that, it raised a $200 million round led by Thoma Bravo at a $9.3 billion valuation. The 11-year-old company has other big-name investors, including Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management, which has helped it raise about $1.1 billion, per Crunchbase. Those investors likely eventually want some liquidity back for their investment. ServiceTitan also is not getting any younger, being founded in 2012 and in the last few years it has made a handful of acquisitions — which can often be a lead-up to an eventual IPO. Perhaps it is having a hard time living up to that 2021 valuation, but regardless, the clock is ticking.
— Chris Metinko
Fintech and banking
Stripe: As we’re out and about in Silicon Valley, we hear a lot of buzz and interest in investor circles about 13-year-oId Stripe maybe finally going public in 2024. The payments startup’s current value is $50 billion (though down from the $95 billion it saw after its Series H funding in 2021) thanks to a $6.5 billion funding it raised last year to cover early employee stock option costs. A possible clue that a long-awaited IPO for Stripe could be nigh: The San Francisco-based company brought veteran CFO Steffan Tomlinson — who had previously taken Confluent and Palo Alto Networks public — on board in September 2023.

Klarna: Buy now, pay later payment services Klarna from Stockholm is in the process of setting up a U.K. holding company, which signals a potential option to list in the U.K. However, the company says it has no immediate plans to go public. It slashed its valuation by more than 85% to $6.7 billion in mid-2022. However Affirm, a U.S. competitor, has seen its stock rise by more than 300% this year to a value over $12 billion, which one would think would at least make 18-year-old Klarna consider the public markets. And its investors, which includes Sequoia Capital, are surely looking for a payout sooner rather than later.

Starling Bank: Among the neobanks, Starling Bank in the U.K. seems to be poised to go public first, with lots of strong numbers underlying its business. The company, now on the cusp of being a decade old, posted profits of $243 million for the year ending in March 2023, growing sixfold year over year. The company received a U.K. banking license in 2016. CEO Anne Boden stepped down in May to hand the reins to COO John Mountain, who will be the interim CEO. Starling is also said to have 4 million accounts across four different account types. Other challenger banks in Europe include Revolut, Monzo, N26 and Atom Bank.
— Gené Teare
Checkout.com: The London-based company says it’s in no hurry to check out to the public markets, but if its biggest competitor, Stripe, does, maybe Checkout.com will also get in line? The e-commerce payments startup has now raised $1.8 billion from investors including Dragoneer, Insight Partners, Tiger Global and Coatue — most recently a $1 billion round in January 2022 at a valuation of $40 billion. But CEO Guillaume Pousaz told TechCrunch in December 2022 that the company had lowered its internal valuation to $11 billion. The move was to reprice shares for employees and not a downround, he said — in fact, Pousaz said then, Checkout.com was in no hurry to raise additional funding. But investors who have poured money into the now 12-year-old company surely want to get returns and liquidity some time, right? (It’s also worth noting that the company reportedly saw numerous C-suite execs depart last year and laid off dozens of employees — which could either be seen as a sign of trouble, or that the company is making the sort of cost-cutting moves public market investors might want to see.)

Plaid: This is the third year in a row we’ve put the San Francisco-based startup on this list, but this time we really mean it! Now, 11-year-old Plaid, which connects user bank accounts to fintech apps, has certainly been dropping clues about its desire to go public since a planned $5 billion sale to Visa was scrapped in 2021 following regulatory issues. Plaid CEO Zachary Perret told Fortune in November that “an IPO is certainly an aspiration” and that the company would consider either a traditional IPO or a direct listing. The same month, the company hired former Expedia CFO Eric Hart as its first chief financial officer — the sort of move that always gets tongues wagging about IPO plans. The company has raised more than $734 million from investors, most recently at a $13.4 billion valuation in 2021.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Cleantech
Redwood Materials: The battery recycling company seems to fit a lot of the criteria that public investors like. It has a prominent founder and CEO (former Tesla CTO JB Strabuel). It has attracted $1.8 billion in equity funding from high-profile late-stage investors including Goldman Sachs and T. Rowe Price. And it’s an area where, with the right technology and scaling methodology, it’s hard to envision a real cap on potential demand. With that in mind, we wouldn’t be shocked to see the 6-year-old Nevada-based company test the waters for a potential offering next year.
— Joanna Glasner
Retail and travel
Navan: Navan, formerly known as TripActions, reportedly submitted a confidential filing for a public offering in September 2022. The corporate travel and expense management software provider has yet to file publicly for an IPO, but there’s reason to believe it’ll do so in 2024. For one, the 8-year-old, Palo Alto, California-based company has raised roughly $1 billion in equity funding and $1.2 billion in debt funding over the years, with lead venture backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Greenoaks, and Coatue, who’d certainly appreciate an exit. More recently, the company laid off 5% of staff last month in a move reportedly aimed at speeding its path to profitability.

Turo: The peer-to-peer car rental marketplace sure would like to go public. It originally filed to go public in January 2022. But unlike others who relinquished IPO dreams when market conditions turned, San Francisco-based Turo is still revving to go. The 14-year-old company has consistently submitted amended filings to the SEC, including the most recent in mid-November. For the first nine months of last year, the company had $666 million in revenue, up nearly 20% from the year-ago period.
— Joanna Glasner
Shein: We have to include this one on the list, of course. In November, Shein reportedly filed confidentially for a 2024 IPO in the U.S. The Chinese fast-fashion retailer has raised some $4.1 billion from investors including Sequoia Capital China, Tiger Global Management and General Atlantic. It was last valued at $60 billion in a May 2023 funding round (though that was down more than a third from a year earlier). Shein is technically based in Singapore since it moved its headquarters there from China in 2022 in what was seen as IPO prep. Since its founding in 2008, it has shaken up the apparel industry with its low-cost clothing and other goods shipped directly to American and Western consumers from factories in Asia. Its growth has been stratospheric: It generated an estimated $23 billion in sales in 2022 and accounted for nearly one-fifth of the fast-fashion market that year. If it does go public this year, it’ll be one of the largest listings in the U.S. by a Chinese company and could well help kickstart the IPO market overall for other hopefuls.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Health tech and agtech
Strive Health: Denver-based Strive Health bills itself as a next-generation kidney care provider, with a focus on identifying conditions earlier, driving better outcomes and lowering costs. To that end, the 5-year-old company has raised $386 million to date, including a $166 million May Series C led by New Enterprise Associates. While Strive isn’t one of the “usual suspects” on IPO prediction lists, we thought it warranted inclusion due to its prodigious fundraising and fast growth, as well as because health care is an industry where it’s not uncommon to launch public offerings after a big Series C.
— Joanna Glasner

Farmers Business Network: Here’s a prediction we’re dusting off from 2022. San Carlos, California-based Farmers Business Network makes a platform that allows farmers to get up-to-date data on everything from seed selection to operations in an effort to help them minimize risk and maximize profits. The startup, which will be a decade old next year, reportedly was making moves toward an IPO in 2022. CEO Amol Deshpande told Bloomberg that year: “We’re certainly of a scale where we can IPO, without a shadow of a doubt.” Maybe this will be the year.
— Marlize van Romburgh

TechCrunch : Netflix considers adding in-app purchases and ads to games, report

Netflix considers adding in-app purchases and ads to games, report says

For two years, Netflix subscribers have been able to download tons of mobile games, all included for free with their subscription. Netflix has developed more than 75 mobile games, boasting popular IPs like Grand Theft Auto, Love Is Blind, Monument Valley and Oxenfree, among many others.

Now, Netflix could potentially be exploring ways to generate revenue from its gaming business, a recent report suggests.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company has had discussions about how to make money from its games for months now, including in-app purchases, putting a price tag on more premium titles and placing ads on games that subscribers to its ad tier have access to. These methods are common (and effective) in the mobile gaming world, with consumers expected to spend $111.4 billion on mobile games in 2024.

Netflix declined to comment to TechCrunch.

A discussion doesn’t always lead to action, so the company may decide to pivot away from monetizing games. Netflix appeared to shut down the idea of ads and in-game payments during an earnings call in April 2023.

“We want to have a differentiated gaming experience and part of that is giving game creators the ability to think about building games purely from the perspective of player enjoyment and not having to worry about other forms of monetization, whether it be ads or in-game payment,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters told investors.

Plans do change, though. After all, Netflix was initially against launching an ad-supported tier and cracking down on password sharing, yet reversed its decision after losing thousands of subscribers in 2022, marking its first subscriber loss in over a decade.

Plus, the move to monetize games would make sense for the streamer since its growth stagnated at the beginning of 2023, laying off 3% of its workforce as a result. Netflix also recently increased its prices again, with the premium plan now costing $22.99 per month for new U.S. customers.

Also, Netflix posted a job listing in 2022 for a game director to work on an AAA PC game, which can be a considerably expensive project in the video game industry. The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reported that AAA games can have development budgets of $200 million or more. Netflix has reportedly discussed charging money for their future high-budget games, WSJ wrote, adding that analysts determined Netflix has spent approximately $1 billion on acquiring gaming studios and overall investing in its gaming business.