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News that Blue Apron is selling itself to Wonder Group — Marc Lore’s latest — for around $100 million marks the end of the former startup’s life as a public company.
Blue Apron raised a $135 million Series D back in 2015 for its meal kit business before going public in mid-2017 with a valuation of just under $1.9 billion. That figure had fallen to double-digit millions before Wonder agreed to buy it for $13 per share, cash. The transaction has an equity value of $103 million and represents a strong premium to the company’s preceding worth — some 77% more than its “30-day volume weighted average price” per a release, and 137% above its value as of the end of trading Thursday.
How Blue Apron got to where it is today is an interesting story, and one that we should trace from the company’s IPO through to today.
Rewinding the clock
At the time that Blue Apron went public, TechCrunch was impressed with its rising scale:
The company is showing a rather incredible amount of growth. Blue Apron said it generated nearly $800 million in revenue in 2016, up from $341 million in 2015. For the first quarter this year, Blue Apron said it generated $245 million in revenue, up from $172 million in the first quarter last year.
However, after targeting a $15 to $17 per-share IPO price range, the company later reduced its ambitions to $10 to $11 per share. Blue Apron sold stock in its debut for $10 per unit, and it barely defended that price point during its first day’s trading.
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