Global-e files to go public as e-commerce startups enjoy a renaissance

Global-e, an e-commerce platform that helps online sellers reach global consumers, filed to go public this morning. The company’s F-1 filing is here, if you’d like to read along.

While Global-e is not a United States-based company — it also has offices in the UK and Israel, among other countries — its recent growth underscores that the e-commerce boom we’ve seen domestically is hardly unique. Indeed, Global-e’s growth has been rapid and impressive.

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Hell, the company is profitable while scaling, a rare sight among recent technology IPOs.

We care about the Global-e IPO because it’s a venture-backed former startup. Reading its filing, we can see that Red Dot Capital Partners has a material stake. Logistics giant DHL also put money into the company, along with money managed by Apax Partners and Vitruvian Partners, both private equity players.

Regardless, here’s a company that represents a bucket of private cash going public during a period of intensive flotation activity. Let’s get acquainted with what it does, dig into its numbers and add it to our IPO list.

Recall that Roblox is expected to begin trading tomorrow and Coupan on Thursday, after pricing Wednesday. Olo will price and trade next week. Coinbase is somewhere in the wings ahead of its own direct listing. And there are others: It’s going to be a regular IPO run for the next few weeks, not counting the other filings that will surely drop.

So let’s get our heads around Global-e. Into the tables!

What is Global-e?

Selling and shipping across borders can prove difficult and is probably hardest for smaller online sellers. And the global market is just that, so if you want to reach it, you have to do extra work. Global-e provides services to sellers to make selling around the world a bit easier. Things like, per its F-1 filing, localized browsing, pricing and checkout, shipping options, locally friendly payment solutions and returns support.

Given the e-commerce boom of the COVID-19 era, the company’s business exploded in 2020.

A few metrics make that plain. From 2018 to 2020, the company’s processed gross merchandise volume, or GMV, rose from $211 million to $382 million to $774 million. As you can imagine, its revenues grew as well, scaling from $38.6 million to $65.9 million to $136.4 million across the same time frame.

,While Global-e is not a U.S.-based company, its recent growth underscores that the e-commerce boom we’ve seen domestically is hardly unique.