Over the last year, the markets have contended with a global shipping crisis, the ongoing pandemic, and creeping inflation. Despite those risks, a huge number of companies made their public debuts in 2021.
We’re talking Coinbase (COIN), Rent the Runway (RENT), Robinhood (HOOD), and, of course, electric vehicle makers Lucid (LCID) and Rivian (RVIN). Not every company that went public performed well, though. While some 399 initial public offerings raised $142.5 billion in 2021, the majority of IPOs ended the year below their initial returns.
And while the 2022 market will start off slow thanks to the continuing pandemic and chip shortage, plenty of big-name firms are primed to hit the public markets this year.
Think Reddit, Flipkart, and Mobileye to name a few. And it doesn’t stop there. We spoke with Avery Spear at Renaissance Capital, who gave us the lowdown on the hottest initial public offerings coming to the markets in 2022.
Vietnamese automaker Vinfast
At the top of the 2022 IPO list is Vietnamese automaker Vinfast. A spinoff of Vingroup, a Vietnam-based conglomerate dealing in everything from real estate to health care, Vinfast is pivoting to electric vehicle manufacturing with its eyes on the U.S. and European markets.
“As you’ve seen with Rivian, [electric vehicles are] a very hot space right now,” Renaissance’s Spear told reporter. “They’ve already started taking preorders, which is kind of around where Rivian was when it was coming to the market.”
The company debuted two electric vehicles, the VF e35 and VF e36, at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November and plans to open a whopping 60 showrooms in the U.S. in 2022. The company plans to begin taking pre-orders for its vehicles in the first half of this year and have them on the road by the tail end of 2022.
With a projected $60 billion valuation, Vinfast will enter a U.S. market that’s riding a wave of EV investments — whether that’s Tesla (TSLA), which saw its valuation skyrocket in 2021 to $1 trillion, or Rivian, which IPO’d in November, raising nearly $12 billion.
Mobileye
Sticking with the automotive industry, Intel () is planning to spin out its Mobileye business in 2022. Acquired by Intel in 2018 for $15 billion, Mobileye is focused on the development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) with an eye toward developing the technology needed to power self-driving cars. The IPO could be valued at as much as $50 billion, and prove to be a boon for chip giant Intel.
In December, the company launched a robotaxi pilot program testing its autonomous capabilities on the streets of Paris. The move will allow employees of the Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann to request a ride to work via the robotaxis four days a week. A safety driver will be behind the wheel.
FILE PHOTO: Reddit mascots are displayed at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, California April 15, 2014. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
If you didn’t know what Reddit was before 2021, the meme stock craze powered by the popular WallStreetBets subreddit changed that. The sprawling message board boasts more than 50 million daily active users, 100 thousand subreddits, and 50 billion monthly views. Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal. It’s no wonder the site is often referred to as the internet’s front page.
Reddit has been around since 2005 offering users the chance to chat about everything from small town happenings to the best strategies to beating their favorite video games. But WallStreetBets brought even more attention to the service, and played a major roll in the retail investor boom.
It’s no wonder the company, which confidentially filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is when it goes public next year.
Walmart-backed Flipkart
Walmart-backed Flipkart is expected to join the public markets in 2022 with a valuation of $38 billion. The India-based company, which competes directly with Amazon’s own India site, offers everything from apparel to home appliances, with 100,000 sellers and 100 million registered users.
Just this month, Flipkart and Walmart invested $145 million in Indian produce company Ninjacart as a means to bolster its grocery delivery service, a category that has taken off dramatically in India.
Automation Anywhere
Finally, there’s software robot company Automation Anywhere. The SoftBank-backed firm helps businesses develop pieces of software, otherwise known as bots, that automate tasks like data entry for everything from human resources departments to sales and marketing.
“It’s robotic process automation, which, again, is kind of a hot area,” Spear said.
The idea is to speed up operations by cutting down the amount of time it takes to do traditionally manual tasks. According to Spear, the company is valued at just below $7 billion.