Fitbit IPO brings in $732M, $37M more than expected

Fitbit

Fitbit will begin selling its stock on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday at a price of $20 per share, which is a dollar more than the $17 – $19 range the company had previously announced. Consequently, the fitness band maker will raise $732 million in the IPO with a valuation of $4.1 billion!

Fitbit will offer 36.6 million shares which will sell under the symbol FIT. Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and BofA Merrill Lynch are underwriting the deal.

In 2014, the company reported earnings of $131.8 million after losing roughly $52 million the year before. Sales of its fitness trackers and other products tripled during 2014 to $745.4 million.

Fitbit is facing fierce competition not only from traditional fitness band makers such as Jawbone and Garmin, but also from Apple and Google, which smart watches are getting increasingly appealing to the wider public. Fitbit has its own smart watch, Fitbit Surge, which it calls the “superwatch.” Unlike the Apple Watch and Android Wear devices though, the Surge can’t run any apps.

Another challenge for Fitbit are two lawsuits from rival Jawbone – one for patent infringement, and another for employee poaching and secret stealing. Obviously, Fitbit claims it has nothing to do with any of these charges, but even if that’s the case, they’ll be spending money and time to prove their innocence.

Fitbit’s existing investors include Foundry Group, Qualcomm Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, Softbank Capital, SoftTech VC and True Ventures.

[Via: VentureBeat]