Adyen Preps For IPO

Initial Public Offering

Adyen, a Dutch payment processing company that counts Airbnb, Uber, Spotify and Netflix as customers, is gearing up to go public on the Amsterdam stock exchange in June.

Reuters reported the company is moving now amid a flurry of deals. Last week, PayPal inked a $2.2 billion deal to acquire iZettle, the Swedish payment company, as it was in the midst of its own initial public offering (IPO).

“iZettle and PayPal are a strategic fit, with a shared mission, values and culture — and complementary product offerings and geographies,” said PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman in a statement when announcing the deal. “In today’s digital world, consumers want to be able to buy when, where and how they want. With nearly half a million merchants on their platform, Jacob de Geer and his team add best-in-class capabilities and talent that will expand PayPal’s market opportunity to be a global one-stop solution for omnichannel commerce.”

Adyen is reportedly eyeing a valuation of between $7 billion and $11 billion, potentially making it the largest technology listing in Europe since Spotify, which went public in April. It would be one of the largest IPOs of a European FinTech, noted Reuters.

Adyen’s main competitor is Vantiv, the owner of Worlday and Worldline of France. Those companies all serve large online retailers that need help with cross-border payments, noted Reuters.

“This offering provides us with the freedom to keep building the company while offering our shareholders a path to liquidity,” said Adyen Chief Executive and Co-Founder Pieter van der Does in a statement.

The current investors of the company include Index Ventures and ICONIQ Capital, the Silicon Valley fund that is an investment vehicle for the founders of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Back in 2015, ICONIQ purchased a stake that valued the company at $2.3 billion. Reuters noted that General Atlantic, Temasek and Felicis Ventures have also invested in Adyen. For 2017, the company’s adjusted EBITDA was €99 million, and its net revenue increased 38 percent to €218 million, noted Reuters. Additionally, the payment company processed €108 billion of transactions in 2017, up 63 percent on a year-over-year basis.