The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the omnichannel retailer FirstCry is on the way as its parent company BrainBees Solutions Pvt Ltd has filed the draft red-herring prospectus (DHRP) with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Thursday, December 28, 2023, a report by CNBC18 said. The company is aiming for listing on the bourses sometime after the general elections in April-May 2024. FirstCry IPO DHRP is expected to be uploaded at SEBI’s website shortly.
The company’s board has approved selling of up to 94.46 lakh equity shares earlier this year. FirstCry parent company BrainBees solutions will sell shares worth $218 million (Rs 1,816 crore). Existing investors including Softbank will sell up to 54.4 million shares whereas Mahindra & Mahindra will offload 28.06 lakh shares in the initial public offering.
The price band and the dates will be finalised when the company files its RHP prior the public issue opening early next year.
FirstCry’s parent firm recent reported the financials for the Financial year ended in March 2023. The data states that the company’s revenue rose by 135% to Rs 5,633 crore in FY23 as compared to the Rs 2,401 crore in FY22. The losses increased too. The net loss jumped 515% in FY23 to Rs 486 crore from Rs 79 crore in FY22. The company reported a strong growth of 135% in its core business.
The company is eyeing to raise around $500-600 million at a market valuation of around $3.75-4 billion. About 60% of the FirstCry IPO will comprise of OFS whereas the rest will be a fresh issue of equity shares.
Just days before the company’s DRHP filing with SEBI, Softbank group, one of the biggest investors in FirstCry, has sold shares worth $310 million. The group had invested $400 million in the e-commerce firm at a valuation of $900 million.
According to a report by Tracxn, FirstCry has raised a total of $965 million of investment over 11 rounds. In the most recent round, the company raised an undisclosed amount from investors including Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Modi and Kris Gopalakrishnan on December 26, 2023. Earlier this year in August, the company had raised $58 million from few prominent Indian family offices. In a bigger round, the company had raised $315 million in March 2021 at a valuation of $2.1 billion.
With its DRHP filing, FirstCry becomes one one of the major IPOs bound for 2024 among the likes of Ola Electric, Oyo and Swiggy.
