Mattress seller Casper sells IPO shares at bottom of lowered range
The stock will be listed under “CSPR” on the New York Stock Exchange
Online mattress pioneer Casper Sleep Inc. will begin trading as a public company on Thursday.
However, the New York-based company sold shares at the bottom of an already lowered offering range.
Casper offered 8.4 million shares at $12 each, raising $100.2 million.
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The updated range was $12 to $13 per share, down from a prior range of $17 and $19 per share.
At $12 per share, the IPO valued Casper at around $470 million, half of what the expected valuation was less than a year ago.
For its part, Casper has expanded beyond online selling, opening 60 Casper stores and selling to 18 retail partners like Target and Amazon.
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It has plans to eventually expand to more than 200 stores in North America.
It has also expanded beyond mattresses to pillows, sheets and dog beds. It currently operates in seven countries.
Founded in 2014, Casper proved naysayers wrong that no one would buy a mattress online. In fact, it revolutionized the way mattresses were delivered by coming up with a mattress flexible enough to be folded into a box small enough to fit into a trunk of a car.
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Casper has said that it has lots of room to grow, estimating that the global sleep economy was worth about $432 billion last year. It says the U.S. sleep business was nearly $80 billion last year. Casper's success has also helped to spur other online mattress rivals like Purple, Leesa Sleep and Tuft & Needle, which merged with the world's leading mattress manufacturer Serta Simmons Bedding.
Still, Casper is losing money. For the first nine months ended Sept. 30, it had sales of $312.3 million. Net losses were $67.4 million during that period. In 2018, sales were $357.9 million, while losses were $92.1 million.
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In 2017, the company had sales of $250.9 million and incurred losses of $73.4 million.
The stock will be listed under “CSPR” on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.