이 기사는 2022년 05월 25일 08:10 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

Market insiders are paying attention to whether Kurly Inc, an operator of the online grocery platform Market Kurly, will proceed with its initial public offering (IPO) plan as soon as it gets an approval for stock listing amid recent string of IPO withdrawals.

Kurly, which is planning to go public this year, has cash and cash equivalents of about 400 billion won ($316 million) as of May, according to industry sources and the company on Monday.

“We have enough funds to expand our logistics centers as we received the proceeds from a pre-IPO, which took place at the end of last year, in January,” a Kurly official said, adding, “We still have proceeds from previous funding rounds.”

The company had 148.3 billion won of cash on hand at the end of 2021. In January, the firm received the proceeds worth 250 billion won from the pre-IPO placement which took place in December 2021, which brought Kurly’s cash balance to 400 billion won.

The company recorded an operating loss of 217.7 billion won in 2021, about two times its operating losses of 101.2 billion won in 2019 and 116.2 billion won in 2020.

This was due to a continued investment in logistics infrastructure ahead of its planned listing and increased costs for inventory management. Kurly needs to continue investing in building logistics centers and establishment of data infrastructure.

The company saw its net loss sharply increase last year. It recorded net losses of 222.4 billion won in 2020 and 241.5 billion won in 2019, which sharply grew to 1.29 trillion won in 2021.

Institutional investors believe loss-making Kurly has no choice but to go public this year. This is because the company needs to carry out large-scale investments using the proceeds from the IPO to achieve economies of scale. The company has few fundraising options given that it already completed its pre-IPO placement. Kurly has raised funds worth 900 billion won from external investors so far.

Kurly has used the proceeds from Series A to F funding rounds and pre-IPO for its growth despite a dilution of Kurly chief executive Sophie Kim’s ownership.

Kurly raised seed funding from investors including DS Asset in 2015 and raised 16.9 billion won in a Series A funding from investors including Korea Investment Partners. It attracted 200 billion won in a Series E funding in 2020 from investors including DST Global, which valued the firm at 1 trillion won.

Kurly was valued at 2.5 trillion won in its Series F funding in July 2021, in which it raised 226 billion won. Its value increased to 4 trillion won in a pre-IPO in December 2021, where Anchor Equity Partners invested 250 billion won in the company.

The market capitalization of platform companies have sharply decreased amid interest rate hikes since the beginning of this year. Shares of Korean e-commerce giant Coupang dropped 56% to $13.02 on May 20 from $29.38 at the end of last year on the New York Stock Exchange.

Kurly’s value also fell to 3 trillion won. Market insiders expect the company to push ahead with the listing plan within this year even with a lower valuation. (Reporting by Chan-mi Oh)