Sweetgreen’s IPO price prediction highlights the valuation range for tech-driven companies – TechCrunch

Sweetgreen, a fast casual one Restaurant chain, which has attracted ample venture c -ital throughout its existence as a private company, set conditions early this morning for its IPO.

The well-known salad spinner expects to sell stocks in the range of $ 23-25 ​​per share when it debuts. Including the shares reserved for its syndicate banks, Sweetgreen is valued at between $ 2.5 billion and $ 2.7 billion at these prices. Renaissance C -ital IPO observer group estimates that in the middle of its IPO price range, Sweetgreen is worth $ 3.0 billion on a fully diluted basis; At the high end of its price range, Sweetgreen’s fully diluted valuation swells to $ 3.13 billion.

The awards are an all-round win for Sweetgreen, which most recently raised $ 156 million on a post-money valuation of $ 1.78 billion, according to PitchBook data. Its investors can all look forward to attractive premiums on the c -ital they have invested in the salad chain.

However, the company’s IPO is notable for a much more interesting reason than that some already wealthy individuals and groups are about to have more cash. Sweetgreen’s IPO pricing is intriguing because it fits in perfectly with our burgeoning thesis about the value of tech companies in going public.

Upper single digits

When Rent the Runway set the price for its IPO, it hit a sales multiple of just over 7 times the mark. It has since lost ground as a publicly traded company, but lately it is still setting a benchmark for what a technology-enabled company could be worth in an IPO. Note that the rent multiplier is not falling; Non-SaaS unicorns can earn old-fashioned SaaS multiples today, which is rather bullish in my opinion.

Allbirds was next. It was priced at $ 15 per share, which we calculate roughly 9 times that multiple. The company’s value then rose to around $ 23 per share by this morning.

With two high single digit IPO sales multiples for DTC companies in a row, it felt like a price range was forming. Rents fell as Allbirds rose, but their IPO prices were fixed in range.

Enter sweet green.