Tag: Pre IPOs

Company description

Founded in 2012, Irvine, California-based Acorns has grown to become a leading micro-investing and robo-advising platform. Acorns founders Walter and Jeffrey Krattenden originally wanted to simplify the investment process in a way that would encourage the average American to save. The company’s innovative smartphone app works by investing small contributions made when purchases made with linked debit or credit cards are rounded to the nearest dollar into low-cost, diversified ETF portfolios. Acorns claims that only 1% of Americans in need of financial assistance have access to it, and that more than 70% do not have more than $ 1,000 in free cash. Acorns currently employs 260 people.

Growth drivers

Impressive growth rates. The business of the company has been showing growth throughout the years of operating activity. The global pandemic has increased customer interest in the Acorns platform. Thus, the number of users at the end of 2020 increased to 6.8 million compared to 4.2 million a year earlier. With the lockdown and recession, more and more users have turned to savings and have their own financial cushion plan. Acorns currently has 8.2 million customers and over $ 3 billion in assets under management.

Expansion of functionality. In 2017, Acorns acquired retirement savings company Vault to expand its retirement offerings. In 2021, the company acquired Harvest Platform to automate refunds and negotiate lower bank fees to support the Acorns Spend offering. Finally, in the same year, Acorns purchased the Pilar Life digital platform, enabling Acorn to offer data management to its customers.

Blackrock entered the capital. Acorns is the largest micro-investing company focusing on passive investors who would not otherwise have invested. The world’s largest asset management company, Blackrock, took over Acorns in May 2018 ($ 50 million deal) and announced a strategic partnership with the company. We highly appreciate this step, which indicates the high interest of the largest player in the industry in the field of microinvestment.

Valuation

With a clever focus on a target group of clients who are not informed about traditional investing, Acorns has experienced incredible growth and attracted a variety of investors in its early fundraising rounds. Acorns raised a total of $ 207 million over eleven funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. According to the results of the last round in April 2020, during which it raised $ 67 million, the company was valued at $ 1.1 billion. Acorns plans to go public through a merger with SPAC by Pioneer. The deal will be valued by the combined company at $ 2.2 billion, with more than $ 450 million in cash remaining on Acorns’ balance sheet, which is planned to be used to scale the company’s activities. According to the latest OTC deals on Forge Global, Acorns has a capitalization of $ 1.5 billion. Thus, the company continues to trade at a discount of almost 50% to the estimated indicative value after the merger with Pioneer. Acorns should go public in the first half of 2022.

Risks

Increased competition in the market. The closest competitors are Betterment, Robinhood, and Wealthfront.

The company is unprofitable in terms of net profit. Acorns expects to generate net income over the medium term.

Company description

Attentive is the developer of a personalized mobile messaging platform designed to help brands and organizations interact with customers. The company’s platform leverages behavioral customer data to help brands automatically send personalized mobile messages throughout the customer’s lifecycle, from product recommendations to payments and real-time customer service.

The Attentive platform enables e-commerce and retail businesses to connect with shoppers through a new way of messaging. More than 4,000 leading companies such as CB2, Michaels, Pura Vida, Rebecca Minkoff, Steve Madden and others use the Attentive platform, thanks to its high performance indicators and reach of over 200 million consumers. The company currently employs 1,000 people and is focused on building the most powerful platform that will help innovative brands rethink the way they interact with their mobile audience.

Growth drivers

Attentive is one of the fastest growing companies in North America. The company was ranked 3rd in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500TM ranking. The company’s revenue increased by 49,155% from 2017 to 2020.

Target market growth due to potential advertisers. New privacy settings in Apple products running iOS 14.5 increase the level of consumer privacy. Thus, the effectiveness of Internet advertising decreases and the effectiveness of contextual advertising increases. The Attentive platform offers effective solutions for promoting sales, as the click-through rate is over 30%.

An innovative platform that proves high sales performance. Attentive has been named the most comprehensive text messaging marketing solution by Forbes. The company was included in the Forbes 2021 Cloud 100 rating.

Partnership with BigCommerce expands business opportunities. Attentive, has announced a partnership with BigCommerce SMS-first, which gives the company access to over 60,000 BigCommerce customers. In addition, new partner customers can easily use the Attentive tag through the BigCommerce extension.

Valualtion

Starting in February 2018, Accenture was able to raise $ 866 million in five investment rounds. During the last investment round in March 2021, the company raised $ 470 million and was valued at $ 6.9 billion. According to Forge, the last deals on OTC with Attentive shares were made with an estimate of $ 11.2 billion. The company’s revenue at the end of 2020 was $ 4.5 billion. It is expected that by the end of 2021 the figure will increase to 12 billion. Taking into account the threefold growth in revenue, we believe that the fair value of Attentive at the end of the year is at the level of $ 18-20 billion. The company may go public in 2022.

Risks

The slowdown in economic growth will put pressure on the purchasing power of the population.

Decreased shopping activity due to new outbreaks of coronavirus infection.

Increased competition in the advertising market, including from Internet platforms.

Ripple functions as an electronic form of money that creates the infrastructure for banks to transfer funds faster. Ripple works differently than most cryptocurrencies because Ripple holders can use the token at any bank, not just one particular type of network. One of the most intriguing things about Ripple is that it can exist in three separate but related forms. The first form is a network that facilitates digital payments. Secondly, XRP is a cryptocurrency built on top of one specific ledger in the same payment system called the XRP Ledger. Finally, Ripple Labs itself is responsible for the development and maintenance of the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network. According to CoinMarketCap data, Ripple has about $ 60 billion worth of tokens in circulation. XRP is the seventh largest digital currency in the world.

Many people are frustrated with the current state of cross-border payments. The costs of classic bank transfers can be high and the waiting periods are long. With Ripple, anyone can send money without any hassle. This is completely secure because all data is transmitted over a distributed network rather than being processed by a single central point. The Ripple network supports 1,500 transactions per second, and the time per transaction takes an average of 3 to 5 seconds. Unlike bitcoin, which is mined and then exchanged between users anonymously, XRP was designed specifically to solve problems in banking systems in order to scale through strong connections with various banks around the world through their network channels. Ripple partners with American Express and Santander, as well as several other financial institutions.

Last year, the SEC accused Ripple Labs executives of manipulating the XRP price. The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder and former CEO Chris Larsen, accusing them of raising more than $ 1.3 billion in an unregistered offering. Since then, Ripple has been mired in litigation. However, according to the latest court hearings, the company is doing well, although the office is still open. In case of a positive outcome, the company may announce its intention to go public as early as 2022. Since 2015, Ripple has raised $ 298 million in three rounds of financing. The last investment round took place in December 2019, during which the company managed to raise $ 200 million. The main investors were Tetragon, SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures. The company was valued at over $ 10 billion.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Singapore, Property Guru is the largest platform for buying or selling real estate in Malaysia. Initially the company was focused only on the Singapore market, but now operates in 14 markets in Southeast Asia, but the priority is Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The Property Guru platform can be used both through the website and using a mobile application for a smartphone. The company’s revenues are generated by income from agents that charge for the use of the platform, offering developers a full package of operational support, as well as a range of advertising services. The company’s mission is to help people make effective decisions in the real estate market through relevant platform content and high service, as well as practical advice and ideas.

In 2019, the company’s revenue amounted to $ 66.7 million, and a net loss of $ 29.6 million. In 2020, revenue slightly decreased to $ 61.9 million, while the net loss, on the contrary, decreased to $ 8.8 million. Despite the fact that Property Guru incurred losses during the global COVID-19 pandemic, the company is posting strong sales levels that are reaching new highs in key markets. Property Guru has over 1,400 employees representing 30 nationalities and gender parity. As part of the ESG agenda, the company supports non-profit organizations such as BillionBricks, which helps the homeless in Asia, and Right to Play, which educates disadvantaged children.

Since 2007, Property Guru has raised $ 547 million in six investment rounds. In the last round of Series E, held in 2020, the company raised a record $ 223 million. Key investors include KKR, TPG, Emtek, Square Peg Capital and Deutsche Telekom. Property Guru has been interested in going public for some time, but the company has never disclosed its valuation. Nevertheless, we know that last year the company’s management considered the possibility of entering the stock exchange in Australia in order to raise $ 257 million. However, due to the unstable situation during the global COVID-19 pandemic, the management refused to IPO. It became known this year that Property Guru is considering a SPAC deal with Bridgetown 2 Holdings, which went public in January 2021. Property Guru has not yet applied for a listing, but the public offering is expected to take place in either the fourth quarter of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022. The indicative valuation of a public company may be $ 1.8 billion.

Among the main risks is competition in the real estate market, in particular from 99.co and ohmyhome. However, it should be noted that the Southeast Asian real estate market is rapidly recovering from the pandemic, especially in five key countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam) that are showing notable GDP growth and increased demand for real estate services. The SPAC deal will include a $ 100 million private equity investment (PIPE) from investors such as Bailey Gifford, REA Group and Akaris Global Partners. Property Guru will be able to use the raised funds to further develop its platform, which will allow the company to continue to increase its market share amid growing effective demand for services in the real estate market.

BuzzFeed, founded in 2006, is one of the leading digital media platforms. The company is known for bringing popular memes and entertainment content to life, as well as official journalism. BuzzFeed began its business by offering entertainment content to its customers, but over time, BuzzFeed began to develop in the field of video content and professional journalism. In 2012, journalist Ben Smith joined the BuzzFeed team to create and develop a new direction of news. Ben was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize a few years later. By the way, the Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious US awards in the field of literature, journalism, music and theater. In 2020, Mark Skoufs took over as Editor-in-Chief of BuzzFeed News and also successfully entered the Pulitzer Prize nomination the following year.

In the early years, BuzzFeed built its business around a native advertising strategy, in which paid ads appeared on the page in a format that matched the style of the main content. However, after several years of its activity, the platform faced the threat of competition from social networks, which began to change their rules of the game. To maintain the required level of competition, the company has changed its approach to advertising in favor of more innovative technologies, focusing on e-commerce and content licensing.

According to BuzzFeed, the company’s revenue grew more than 50% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same period a year earlier. The growth of the indicator became possible due to the improvement of marketing policy and business scaling. Advertising revenue grew 79% in the second quarter of this year to $ 47.8 million. The second quarter of 2020 was the worst quarter for advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we see market activity showing an impressive recovery this year. It is important that the company shares our views and in 2020 BuzzFeed acquired rival company HuffPost and we consider this deal to be beneficial for the overall business in the mid-term.

In November 2016, BuzzFeed held its final investment round, during which it raised $ 200 million and was valued at $ 1.7 billion.In June, it became known that the company intends to enter the public market through the SPAC mechanism of the merger with the 890 5th Avenue Partners under the ticker ENFA. Following the merger, the new public company will trade under the ticker BZFD. The public listing transaction is expected to close in Q4 of this year or Q1 2021. According to market rumors, the transaction may take place at the level of $ 1.5-2 billion.

High competition in the media market can be singled out among the main risks, however, we understand that the company has firmly established its position in the market. We believe that going public will allow the company to raise funds for more aggressive marketing activities or even M&A deals. The company has good fundamental prerequisites, since by the end of 2021 the management predicts revenue growth to $ 521 million compared to $ 321 million in 2020. At the end of 2022, the figure may even be $ 624 million, which corresponds to 20% growth year-on-year. The company expects revenues to exceed $ 1 billion by 2024. Looking back, we can see how Buzzfeed has grown in market position. Over the past 15 years, the company has shown impressive results. Thanks to its successful activities in the M&A market, the company manages not only to increase its market share, but also to demonstrate impressive results. We believe that going public will provide an opportunity for BuzzFeed to grow its business further.

The Noom digital platform, founded in 2008, invites its clients to change their behavioral habits to achieve their wellness goals. Although the first challenge the developers focused on was weight loss, the platform is currently helping to treat anxiety, hypertension, and even diabetes. Within the framework of the application, the client can be offered coaching based on psychological motivation, as well as recommendations on nutrition and physical activity. Noom is one of the most downloaded health apps in the world for both Android and iOS. The app is the first virtual healthcare provider to be certified by the CDC, including a diabetes prevention program. Noom relies on a three-factor model that intertwines psychology, technology, and coaching throughout the entire user experience. Noom’s mission is to ensure that Noomers, that is, Noom customers around the world, can look after their health.

Noom works like this. After the user has downloaded the application and answered a series of questions, the platform’s patented algorithm creates a unique therapeutic plan for the client and appoints a supervising specialist. The dietary plan uses a unique system based on a traffic light analogy. Red light means stop, yellow light warns, and green light allows action. All foods are divided into red, yellow and green categories based on their calorie content. The visual system provides immediate feedback to help users make more informed meal decisions. Noom has won high nominations in the Best Employer category by various publishers for many years, for example, in 2019, the company entered the Top 100 Jobs by Glassdoor and was ranked 54th in the Fortune Best Jobs. In 2020, Noom’s CEO was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. In 2021, Noom was named one of CNET’s Best Weight Loss Programs.

Noom has a customer base of 45 million users. In 2017, the company’s revenue amounted to $ 12 million. In 2018, Noom managed to increase the figure 5 times to $ 61 million.At the end of 2019, the company’s revenue increased to $ 237 million, and already in 2020 the figure reached $ 400 million. In May 2021, Noom officially achieved unicorn status, completing $ 540 million in fundraising in Round F. The company was valued at $ 3.7 billion. The company’s top investors include names such as Serena Ventures, Silver Lake and Sequoia Capital. Starting in 2020, Noom has been exploring opportunities to enter the IPO market. Noom has yet to file an S-1 form, but the company is known to have hired specialists from Goldman Sachs to oversee and advise on the initial listing process. It is likely that Noom could conduct an IPO in early 2022 with an estimated valuation of $ 6-10 billion.

Among the main risks, we see high competition in the sector, and there are applications that are more cost-effective, but they do not have a scientific and medical consulting base. An important factor in supporting Noom’s business is that during the pandemic, many people gained weight due to inactivity as they were at home. The CDC estimates that over 40% of American adults are obese. In the United States alone, the obesity treatment market is valued at $ 75 billion and is growing at a rate of 4% annually. Noom has attracted the attention of many investors due to its rapid growth and its ability to generate bottom line. The presence of health consultants sets the company apart from the competition. The company can use the funds raised during the IPO for scaling its business, marketing activities and geographic expansion.

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Authentic Brands Group is a New York-based holding company that operates clothing subsidiaries. Authentic Brands’ portfolio consists of over 50 consumer brands. For example, Aéropostale, Nautica, Eddie Bauer, Jones New York, Forever 21, Juicy Couture, and Van Heusen. However, the company is not only concerned with clothing. Authentic Brands acquires the rights to sell products bearing the names of bygone celebrities such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, as well as living legends such as Shaquille O’Neill and Doctor. J “Julius Erving. Despite the severe difficulties faced by shopping malls during the pandemic, many stores founded in the 1980s have been given a new lease of life thanks to Authentic Brands and its licensing activities.

Authentic Brands was established in 2010. In 2016, the company partnered with shopping center developers Brookfield Property Partners and Simon Property Group to save Aéropostale from bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter, Authentic Brands and Simon Property joined forces to form Simon Property Authentic Retail Concepts (SPARC Group). In 2020, Authentic Brands announced a partnership with Simon Property to save Lucky Brand Jeans from Chapter 11 litigation.

In June 2021, Authentic Brands and the SPARC Group teamed up to acquire the Eddie Bauer online store. In 2021, the company also announced the acquisition of assets held by Collective Licensing International such as Airwalk, Hind, Vision Street Wear and Above The Rim. These brands were previously owned by Payless Holdings, which has since ceased operations. In August 2021, Adidas sold its Reebok brand to the company. As of September 2020, the company’s list of acquisitions was expected to bring in annual revenue to $ 15 billion, not counting all acquisitions made in 2021. From 2016 to 2020, Authentic Brands’ revenue grew from $ 165 million to $ 489 million at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31%. From 2016 to 2020, net income grew at an average annual rate of 47%, increasing from $ 45 million to $ 211 million. For the 12 months ended March 31, 2021, Authentic Brands’ sales amounted to $ 529 million.

Since 2010 Authentic Brands has raised funding through several rounds of direct investment. In total, the company managed to raise $ 1.1 billion. In the last private round in August 2019, the company raised $ 875 million from BlackRock’s Long Term Private Capital, GIC and Jasper Ridge Partners. Authentic Brands did not disclose the date of the planned IPO, however, it is known that investors will be offered two classes of shares: ordinary shares of class A will be available to all investors, and class B shares will be available only to the CEO and his key employees. Class B shares will also have more votes than Class A shares. There is no official price range indicative. However, according to various media reports, Authentic Brands may be assessed at $ 10 billion. Renaissance Capital estimates that during the IPO the company will be able to raise up to $ 1.5 billion. It is known that the organizers of the deal will be BofA Securities, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, UBS Investment Bank, Wells Fargo Securities, Cowen, Guggenheim Securities, and KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Many analysts estimate that the apparel and footwear retail industry could grow from $ 1.9 trillion in 2019 to over $ 3 trillion by 2030. Favorable market conditions will support Authentic Brands’ business as the company operates a variety of in-demand brands. In addition, most of the company’s revenue comes from licensing fees, so the company can continue to grow by selling licensing agreements through e-commerce platforms even if malls and brick-and-mortar stores are out of service in the event of new outbreaks of coronavirus infection.

Dave is a non-banking application that helps clients solve their current financial problems. The application uses an algorithm to predict the ability of users to repay loans based on their checking account and income history. The algorithm predicts when the user’s expenses may exceed his balance by sending a notification and the possibility of obtaining a loan until the user’s next paycheck. The company does not charge an overdraft fee, instead charges a monthly fee for using the application and provides a “hint” option after receiving a loan. Dave.com allows users to sign up for $ 1 per month to receive a free verification, and up to $ 100 as overdraft protection with no fees or interest on use. The company claims that more than 25% of Americans have overdrapped in the past 12 months.

Dave held its Serie A seed round in 2017 and was able to raise $ 13.3 million. In 2021, the company was able to raise $ 100 million in a debt investment round. So far, the company has raised $ 176 million from institutional investors. The exact date for Dave’s IPO has yet to be determined, but it is expected to conclude in the fourth quarter of 2021. The company intends to complete the SPAC deal with its subsidiary Victory Park Capital, which is headquartered in Chicago. Subsidiary Impact Acquisition Holdings III was listed in March 2021. During the deal, Dave will receive $ 210 million in equity (PIPE) from Tiger Global Management and other investors. The deal has an indicative value of $ 4 billion. Dave is truly committed to disrupting the banking and financial services industry and is struggling to help clients avoid financial mistakes. This is the first app to help customers get real benefits. According to the company, the Side Hustle feature has already resulted in app users earning $ 200 million.

Flexport is a global freight forwarder operating an intelligent logistics platform that enables effective decisions to participate in global trade. Freight forwarding is a complex of services for ensuring the transportation of goods, including their documentary registration and support. The essence of professional forwarding consists in escorting cargo “from door to door” and continuous monitoring of the cargo transportation process in order to avoid failures. The company was founded in 2013 by Ryan Petersen and Suzanne Schöneberg. Petersen retains his position as CEO, while Schöneberg is developing a logistics resource, Flexport.org, which pursues the goals of the ESG agenda.

Flexport’s original goal was to improve coordination and communication between buyers and sellers in the global trade. In the year the company was established, the logistics industry continued to operate according to the traditional scheme, using paper documents. Flexport’s mission was to modernize and simplify the cumbersome bureaucratic freight forwarding process while minimizing the potential for operational errors. In three years, Flexport’s customer base has grown to 700 customers in 64 countries around the world. In 2018, Flexport expanded its operations with the introduction of freight financing services, the charter of its own aircraft and the management of its own warehouses. Currently, Flexport’s customer base numbers 10,000 clients in 200 countries around the world.

Flexport’s business model is designed in such a way that the company makes money from both importers and exporters. The company’s revenue grew from $ 30 million in 2014 to $ 1.7 billion in 2020. It is no secret that the global pandemic has had a negative effect on the company’s business due to the disruption of the world’s logistics supply chains. Nevertheless, the company managed to adapt to the new conditions. Management says the company maintains positive margins. During the pandemic, Flexport.org was one of 10 organizations that contributed to the creation of the Frontline Responder’s Fund. The foundation raised more than $ 8 million and used it to provide social assistance, including the delivery of 54 million masks, food and medical supplies around the world. The fund used the patented intelligent Flexport technology, which is able to determine where in the world one or another product is most in demand.

According to Crunchbase, during 4 investment rounds during 2014-2019. Flexport was able to raise $ 1.3 billion. Following the results of the last investment round of Series D in February 2019, during which the company was able to raise $ 1 billion, Flexport’s valuation was $ 3.2 billion. Among the largest investors in the transaction were funds such as Softbank, Founders Fund, DST Global, Cherubic Ventures, Susa Ventures and SF Expresslead. There is no information in public sources about the company’s intention to go public. However, according to Crunchbase, there were major secondary market deals in the company’s stock in March and December 2019.

As the global economy recovers from the pandemic, global trade is showing steady growth. According to FreightWaves.com, in May 2021, global freight traffic was 1.5 times higher than before the pandemic. Market growth is associated not only with an increase in current demand, but also with the desire of retailers to build up their stocks to meet the growing demand in the medium term. Flexport has a competitive advantage in terms of data processing and understanding in which geographic location it is most demanded to deliver this or that cargo. Raising capital through an IPO mechanism would help the company scale its platform in the face of growing business activity in all logistics markets around the world. Among the obvious risks for Flexport’s business are the risks of a slowdown in the global economy and the risks of tightening industry regulation in individual countries.

Bird, based in Santa Monica, is engaged in the production, sale and rental of electric scooters and electric bicycles. Inspired by his daughters riding classic scooters, founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden thought adults would also be interested in getting around town on electrified versions of this mobile transport. Travis believes that electric scooters are a necessary component of urban logistics because the electric scooter is, firstly, green, and secondly, it improves road safety. Bird launched its business in 2017.

However, in the first six months of the company’s operation in Santa Monica, many problems arose, such as dangerous behavior of citizens on electric scooters and disregard of local laws. Customers also threw electric scooters in pedestrian areas, which caused discontent among citizens. After a series of accidents, numerous fines and civil protests, the city attorney’s office filed a lawsuit against Bird. The company managed to settle the claim with a payment of $ 300 thousand. In 2019, Bird published a safety report in collaboration with David Strickland, the former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In the summer of 2021, the Santa Monica administration allowed only three electric scooter rental companies, namely Spin, Veo and Lyft, to operate, effectively pushing Bird out of the market. Bird currently rents its equipment in more than 300 cities in the USA and Europe, and also offers them for purchase on the site of the same name. The company’s revenue in 1H21 increased by 181% yoy, which is 30% higher than expected. The gross transaction value also increased by 182% compared to the first half of 2020, which is 30% higher than expected. In August 2021, Bird unveiled its new Bird Bike electric bike for $ 2,299.

In total, since 2017, Bird has raised $ 623 million in five investment rounds. In May 2021, Bird announced plans to go public through a SPAC deal with Switchback II, which was set up to merge with a green company. The indicative valuation of the deal could be $ 2.3 billion, but at the beginning of 2020 Bird’s valuation was $ 2.85 billion. The decline in the indicative value was due to the global lockdown caused by Covid. The company had to temporarily suspend its activities and lay off almost 40% of its staff. The combined company will raise $ 428 million from private investors, as well as $ 160 million from Fidelity Management & Research Co. and other investors. Bird will also gain access to $ 40 million in funding from specialized finance firms Apollo Investment Corp. in New York and MidCap Financial Trust in Maryland. The official date for Bird’s IPO has yet to be announced.

At the end of 2020, the volume of the electric scooter market was estimated at $ 19.4 billion. The average annual growth rate of the industry is projected at 7.6% until 2028. Bird is not only engaged in electric scooters, but also expands its product line. For example, the addition of e-bikes will allow the company to increase its presence in the mobile urban EV market by billions of rides per year. Risks include competition from companies such as Razor, Lime, Scoot, Skip and Spin. However, the most obvious risk factor to consider is the physical danger of riding electric scooters, which has led to numerous lawsuits over the years. Nevertheless, in the course of the transaction, the company will raise a significant amount of funds, which Bird plans to use to reduce its debt burden, scale up its operations, increase competitiveness and increase its market share.