Perhaps Casper cutting its price target was the right thing to do.
Shares jumped as much as 28% Thursday after the online mattress manufacturer launched its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
Casper Sleep Inc. (NYSE: CSPR) trimmed back its IPO to $12 to $13 per share from the $17 to $19 price target it initially looked for.
After getting the bottom of its price target at the market open Thursday, shares of Casper jumped to near $16 a share before leveling off around $15 a share through midday trading.
Based on where its shares opened Thursday, the company has a valuation of around $575 million. At one point, Casper sought a valuation of $1.1 billion after a private funding round in 2019.
On Wednesday, Casper sold 8.35 million shares at $12 each.
Its IPO came on the heels of such disastrous offerings like WeWork and subpar IPOs like Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) and SmileDirectClub Inc. (Nasdaq: SDC).
Those lackluster IPOs soured investors on the start-up market — likely part of the reason why Casper elected to lower its price target.
“Valuations are just moments in time,” Casper CEO Philip Krim told CNBC Thursday morning. “This is obviously a huge milestone for us. … It doesn’t distract us from building the business we want to build.”
The biggest challenge with Casper is its inability to make money.
The company reported a net loss of $67.3 million on revenue of $312.3 million in the first nine months of 2019. Despite a 20.3% year-over-year increase in sales, it was still a loss.
According to Casper Sleep’s IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Jan. 10, it has 60 retail stores across the U.S. along with its online business.
It currently has 27 products on the market and sells in seven different countries.
Casper’s offering was led by Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: JEF)
