The personalized shopping subscription service hit the NASDAQ on Friday after raising $120m in its IPO, becoming the first female-founded internet company to go public this year.
In fact, this IPO marks the first time a female founder-CEO has taken a consumer internet company public since Care.com went on the market almost 4 years ago.
Let’s meet the founder-CEO
With Stitchfix, Katrina Lake has built a profitable, $1B business in less than 6 years.
The company — a personal styling service that picks out clothes for users after a one-time styling consultation — is challenging the notion that the market for selling clothes online is too full (or already claimed by Amazon). And the company’s 2m active customers agree.
There of course, are some h8ters
While Stitchfix’s IPO was considered by some to be a disappointment (shares sold at $15 — far shy of the $18-20 target), Lake doesn’t agree.
From the get-go, Stitchfix has focused on profitability as opposed to achieving a gold-standard valuation. Their own valuation was relatively low at $300m pre-IPO — but during that time, they only raised $44m in VC funds.
In other words, that post-IPO $1.5B is serving not only Stitchfix’s investors but Lake and her employees very well.