Allbirds reportedly files confidentially for IPO

Sustainable footwear and apparel brand Allbirds could be the latest company to join the red-hot IPO market.

The San Francisco-based company, which last year was rumoured to be in talks with banks over a potential flotation, has reportedly filed for a confidential IPO, WWD reports, citing top financial and industry sources.

The company, which began its days as an e-tailer selling exclusively footwear but has since expanded into apparel, was last September valued at around 1.7 billion dollars.

If it goes ahead, it will be the latest in a spate of fashion IPOs taking place since the outbreak of the pandemic, despite the industry as a whole being hit hard during the crisis.

Those companies include resale platforms Poshmark and ThredUp, eyewear brand Warby Parker, iconic boot maker Dr Martens and British e-commerce giant The Hut Group.

Allbirds was launched in 2016 by former soccer player Tim Brown and industrial engineer Joey Zwillinger and has now made a name for itself on the sustainable fashion scene for its use of regenerative natural materials including FSC-certified eucalyptus tree fibre and SweetFoam, a proprietary innovation made with sugarcane.

In February, the company revealed it had invested 2 million dollars in material innovation firm Natural Fiber Welding and its Mirum technology to create a new 100 percent natural plant-based leather.

In May, Allbirds teamed up with Adidas to unveil the first product from their Futurecraft.Footprint collaboration. It was a prototype running shoe with a carbon footprint of 2.94 kilograms CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent emissions) per pair. In comparisons, one of Adidas’ Adizero RC3 running shoes has a carbon footprint of 7.86 kilograms CO2e.

Today, Allbirds serves 35 countries with 23 brick-and-mortar stores across the world.