이 기사는 2021년 07월 12일 07시39분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

South Korean grocery delivery startup Kurly Inc has chosen Seoul as a listing venue, taking a U-turn from plans to float in New York where ecommerce giant Coupang made a successful stock market debut earlier this year.

Kurly, which operates online grocery delivery service Market Kurly, is set to restart a process to list shares on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, industry sources said on Friday.

Its choice of Seoul as a listing venue is aimed at capitalizing on a booming initial public offering market in the country. Many companies across industries, including SK Bioscience and SK IE Technology, went public at valuations of billions of dollars in the first half of the year.

Kurly, which is not profitable yet, is also likely to benefit from loosened listing standards. The Korea Exchange earlier this year eased listing requirements for Kospi so that loss-making companies with a market capitalization of over 1 trillion won ($872 million) are qualified for Kospi listing, which used to be allowed only for Kosdaq listing.

Kurly has grown rapidly in recent years. Its revenue more than doubled year-on-year to 952.3 billion won in 2020 on the back of surging demand for online grocery shopping due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its operating loss has been increasing as the company continues to invest in logistics infrastructure. Like other loss-making ecommerce companies, Kurly is likely to use the price-to-sales ratio to estimate its value.

Kurly raised 200 billion won in a pre-IPO funding round in April last year at a post-money valuation of about 1 trillion won, more than twice its value in the previous round a year earlier. Analysts expect the company will target a valuation of above 2 trillion won in the planned IPO.

Competition for roles in IPO

Kurly will start a process to select underwriters all over again. NH Investment & Securities and Korea Investment & Securities will likely be excluded from the selection process as they are managing an IPO for rival Oasis.

This could lead to an opportunity for other major domestic brokerage firms, such as Samsung Securities, KB Securities and Mirae Asset Securities. Kurly had hired Samsung Securities in 2018 to lead an IPO but later canceled the contract as it considered a US listing.

Kurly, known for its overnight grocery delivery service, was founded in December 2014 by former Goldman Sachs banker Sophie Kim. She owns the largest stake of around 10%, and several financial investors including Sequoia Capital China together hold more than a 50% stake in the company. (Reporting by Chan-mi Oh)