ContextLogic, the parent company of Wish e-commerce platform, is third San Francisco company to raise more than $1 billion in past week
ContextLogic Inc., the parent company of mobile-focused e-commerce platform Wish, priced the shares for its initial public offering at $24 Tuesday, the top of its proposed range.
Wish WISH, +4.76% expects to sell 46 million shares at that price to raise at least $1.1 billion at a market capitalization of more than $14 billion. The San Francisco company had previously stated a targeted pricing range of $22 to $24.
The shares are expected to trade Wednesday morning on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol “WISH.” Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and BofA Securities are the lead underwriters, and have access to an additional 6.9 million shares.
Wish joins a long list of companies that have raised at least a billion dollars in IPOs this year, including Airbnb Inc. ABNB, -4.00% and DoorDash Inc. DASH, -0.69% last week. The Renaissance IPO ETF IPO, -0.03% has soared more than 108% for the year so far. And the Amplify online Retail ETF IBUY, +2.49% has skyrocketed more than 116% for the period.
Wish is also going public at a time when shoppers are making an accelerated shift to e-commerce amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditional retailers including Target Corp. TGT, +0.25% and department store retailers like Macy’s Inc. M, +3.97% have enhanced their online sales platforms to meet both customer demand and heightened safety and hygiene protocols.
With 100 million monthly active users in more than 100 countries, Wish says it is the most downloaded shopping app, and aims to bring its users a wide selection of affordable products. Wish has more than 500,000 merchants selling 150 million items to customers. About 1.8 million items are sold daily.
The mobile commerce market totaled $2.1 trillion in 2019 and is projected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2024, according to the Wish prospectus. More than 90% of the user activity and purchases on the Wish platform are on the mobile app.
As consumers make the shift to e-commerce during the coronavirus pandemic, experts like Adobe Inc. ADBE, -0.78% have seen mobile sales leap during the holiday season.
Wish is also banking on increased e-commerce use from consumers who would normally shop at discount and off-price retailers.
“We believe that the next billion e-commerce customers will be these value-conscious consumers,” the Wish prospectus said.