Rent the Runway Files to Go Public

[PinkDiamond]

I honestly didn't think their idea of renting high-end fashion and quality jewels to the public was going to work out for them, but apparently it was doing very well until the lockdowns shut down the world, and events and gatherings where one would show off such things weren't allowed be held. So I was surprised to see their pre-pandemic stats, and now that the world is somewhat returning to normal, they expect to see their numbers rebound, and I hope for their sake that they do. They've now gone public, so more power to them; and I'll keep an eye out for their post-pandemic stats when they come out, but I expect them to fare very well now that they've proven that the idea of renting high-end clothing and jewelry isn't as far-fetched as I thought.

Rent the Runway Files to Go Public
By Rob Bates | October 07, 2021



"On Oct. 4, Rent the Runway—an e-tailer that lets customers borrow high-end fashion, including jewelry—became the latest digitally native brand to file to go public, in what has become a record year for IPOs.

The self-described closet in the cloud plans to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker “RENT.” It has previously been valued at over $1 billion.

Rent the Runway’s registration statement included several numbers that concerned observers, including a falloff in subscribers during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of the 2019 fiscal year, the e-tailer had 133,572 active subscribers. By the end of 2020, that number had dropped by more than half, to 54,797. By July 31, 2021, the number of active subscribers had recovered somewhat, to 97,614.

The company has also posted losses for the last two years—including a $153.9 million loss for fiscal 2019, and a $171.1 million loss in fiscal 2020. Revenue totaled $256.9 million in fiscal 2019, but it fell to $157.5 million in fiscal 2020.

In the filing, Rent the Runway admitted that COVID-19 has had a “material adverse impact” on its business, as pandemic restrictions have led to a decrease in special events and an increase in working from home, therefore giving customers less reason to rent clothes.

But the company is counting on a post-pandemic bounce back, when it will be able to return to a “normal operating environment,” it said.

Rent the Runway was launched in 2009, after cofounder, CEO, and chair Jennifer Hyman (pictured), then 29, heard her sister exclaim, “My closet is dead to me.”

“I asked myself, ‘What if the closet were alive?’” Hyman wrote in the registration statement. “What if it could adapt and change with us as our size, mood, and life stage changed?… And what if we didn’t need so much stuff?”

The site has “democratized high-end fashion for women everywhere,” she wrote.

Rent the Runway is generally credited with being one of the first ... "
https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-art ... go-public/