According to Bloomberg’s sources, exercise equipment company Peloton Interactive has selected Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to lead its initial public offering (IPO). As a public company, Peloton is expected to be valued at more than $8 billion.
In the last few weeks, a number of banks participated in a competitive pitching process to win the deal — which is known as a bake-off in the industry. However, the timing of the IPO has not been announced yet.
Peloton was founded by John Foley (CEO, Tom Cortese (COO), Hisao Kushi (general counsel), and Yony Feng (CTO) in 2012. Foley started out as an engineer at Mars back in 1990. Seven years later, Foley built up CitySearch.com and later served as CEO of Evite.com, co-founder and CEO of Evite.com, and president of BarnesAndNoble.com.
Known for selling exercise bikes and treadmills with built-in tablets that stream fitness content, Peloton sells its cheapest package for $2,245 and subscribers pay $39 per month for classes. And Peloton’s treadmills cost $4,295.
Plus Peloton also has studios in New York where the live classes are streamed. Plus Peloton’s digital video subscription service costs $19.49 per month and it includes yoga meditation and boot camp classes.
In terms of venture capital, Peloton raised nearly $1 billion total. Last year, Peloton raised $550 million at a reported $4.15 billion valuation. Some of Peloton’s investors include Technology Crossover Ventures, Wellington Management, Fidelity Investments, and Kleiner Perkins.
Last year, Foley told Business Insider that raising money for Peloton was not easy. In the first three years, Foley said that the company pitched 400 investors and they decided not to invest. And since some of those pitches involved multiple meetings, the company got turned down five or six thousand times. So the company worked with a couple hundred angel investors who put up smaller amounts each before the company received institutional funding.
