Hypebeast has come a long way from founder Kevin Ma’s bedroom. On Friday the sneaker-enthusiast and lifestyle media brand announced it has applied for an initial public offering on Hong Kong’s Growth Enterprise Market.
Approximately 500 million shares, including 100 million existing shares, are expected to be listed starting Monday at a price of HK$0.12-0.14, resulting in proceeds of approximately $3.8 million at the current exchange rate.
The company, which initially started as a men’s footwear blog, has diversified into a variety of areas including its global e-commerce business HBX, as well as Hypetrack, a music publication and app, and Popbee, a women’s fashion publication. All told, Hypebeast properties attracted a total of 8 million monthly unique visitors in the first quarter of 2016, according to the company.
“We’ve been bootstrapped since day one. We never raised any money since we’ve started,” said Ma in an interview with Business of Fashion. “We looked at private investors and venture capitalists, but we felt more comfortable going this route. It was a personal choice, I guess. We met the requirements for the exchange so we thought, why not try this out?”