By Echo Wang
(Reuters) -Financial technology company Chime said on Wednesday it raised $864 million in its initial public offering after pricing shares at $27 each.
The company had marketed the offering between $24 and $26 per share.
The IPO values Chime at roughly $11.6 billion on a fully diluted basis.
Chime’s IPO marks one of the biggest by a U.S. financial technology firm in recent years. It follows a period when valuations reset from highs touched in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which turbocharged investments into fintechs and e-commerce companies.
Founded in 2012 by former Visa Inc executive Chris Britt and Comcast Corp alumnus Ryan King, Chime offers its services through partnerships with brick-and-mortar banks. Its products include branded checking accounts with user-friendly features such as fee-free overdrafts.
Chime, which was valued at $25 billion during its last major funding round in 2021, counts the likes of Yuri Milner’s DST Global, private equity firm General Atlantic, and investment firm ICONIQ among its investors.
Chime is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Thursday under the symbol ‘CHYM’.
The IPO comes on the heels of a strong market debut by stablecoin issuer Circle earlier in June, helping inject fresh momentum into a U.S. IPO market that had been subdued amid uncertainty triggered by the tariff policies of the Trump administration.
Chime had been expected to offer shares earlier this year before delaying its launch after Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement roiled financial markets.
The recent pickup in listings has encouraged more companies to revive plans, with June shaping up as a key window as firms look to capitalize on relatively stable market conditions ahead of the traditional summer slowdown.
As of March 31, Chime had 8.6 million active members. According to its IPO prospectus, the company earned average revenue per active member of $251 in the first quarter. Members averaged 54 transactions per month, 75% of which were purchase transactions using Chime-branded cards.
The company generates the bulk of its revenue from interchange fees — a share of transaction fees paid by merchants to payment networks like Visa each time a customer uses a Chime debit or credit card.
Chime’s net loss narrowed to 39 cents per share for the year ended December 31, down from $3.22 in 2023 and $8.12 in 2022.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are the lead underwriters for the IPO offering.
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York and Manya Saini and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Leslie Adler)
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