Shein reportedly set to raise £1.6 billion for potential US IPO launch
Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein is set to raise £1.6 billion ($2 billion) in a new funding round this month, ready for a potential IPO in the US.
According to Reuters and its anonymous sources, the major investors in this round are The United Arab Emirates' sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala, as well as private equity firm General Atlantic (GA) and venture capital group Sequoia Capital China. In addition, Tiger Global Management is set to become a new investor.
This move would allow the company to open a US IPO by the end of 2023.
The business was valued at just above £81 billion ($100 billion) during Shein’s last fundraising round in April 2022, making it the world’s third most-valuable private company at the time, behind TikTok parent ByteDance and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Only two years prior, the company was valued at £12 billion ($15 billion).
However, with this round of funding, Shein has reportedly cut its valuation to £53.8 billion ($64 billion), down by a third from last year. Investors who participated in Shein's 2022 fundraising will adjust the value of the stakes they bought earlier to reflect the company's current valuation.
If successful, the flotation would be one of the largest this year globally and a significant test of US investor appetite for Chinese companies amid volatile markets and geopolitical tensions.
The e-commerce platform, which was founded in 2008 by former Chinese marketing professional Chris Xu, produces fast fashion items in China to sell online in the US, Europe and Asia.
The company attempted to list in the US in 2020 but shelved the plan partly due to unpredictable markets. At the time, the company hired Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to work on the IPO.
