After Slashing Its IPO Price Range, Casper Opens With A Pop 

Mattress startup Casper’s stock opened this morning at $14.50, about 21 percent higher than its IPO price, on its first day of trading.

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Casper priced its shares at $12, the bottom of its range, on Wednesday night. And while 21 percent is a nice pop on the first day of trading, it’s important to note that it comes after the company slashed its IPO price range.

Casper previously priced its shares between $17 and $19, but lowered its price range to $12 to $13 in a Wednesday morning regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. So while Casper’s stock was trading above $15 on Thursday, that’s still below what the company originally thought its stock was worth.

As it makes its public debut, it’s notable that Casper is worth significantly less than it was just a year ago.

With an IPO price of $12, Casper’s valuation comes out to about $475.5 million ($490.6 million if underwriters exercise their options). Casper was last privately valued at about $1.1 billion after its $100 million Series D in March 2019. When the company priced its shares between $17 and $19 last week, its valuation fell to about $786 million.

Casper raised $339.7 million in funding as a private company, according to Crunchbase, with backers such as New Enterprise Associates and Target. Like many venture-backed startups that have made it to the IPO stage, it isn’t profitable. The company reported $312.3 million in revenue for the first nine months of 2019, with $67.4 million in losses.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias