Xpon Technologies taps Sequoia Financial for IPO

Article written by Anthony Macdonald, Yolanda Redrup and Kanika Sood on Oct 27, 2021
Financial Review

Marketing technology company Xpon is pitching investors for its upcoming IPO, expected to raise up to $12.5 million.

The business, led by founder Matt Forman and counts former local SAP and Oracle boss Tim Ebbeck on its board, has created a public cloud-based marketing platform that lets companies unify previously siloed customer data sets spanning things like loyalty programs, email campaigns and point of sale data and runs artificial intelligence algorithms over the top of the data to determine the propensity of a customer to buy a certain product.

The business is expected to attract a $48 million pre-money enterprise value, giving it a 4.3 times enterprise value to annualised recurring revenue multiple (based on figures from the September quarter). It will have a $60.7 million market capitalisation, if it raises the full $12.5 million.

A presentation for investors seen by Street Talk revealed the company recorded $2.6 million in annual recurring revenue in June 2020. By June this year that had swelled to $9.2 million and in the September quarter ARR hit $11 million, having brought in more than $3 million in revenue.

Xpon is aiming to list before Christmas. Louise Kennerley

It’s also an important listing for Sequoia Financial Group’s new corporate finance team and its directors Richard Rouse and Chris Eldridge, as it marks their entrance into the tech space.

The bankers are set to sell the company’s exposure to three big themes - the shift to public cloud, the move away from third-party cookies on websites by consumers and the big tech giants alike amid the global regulator crackdown on consumer privacy, and its ability to allow retails to control, leverage and grow their own data sets.

Xpon services customers across financial services, retail and travel, media and entertainment, non-profit, education and more.

Its customers include Spaceship, OFX, Domino’s, Flight Centre, BBC, Amnesty International, La Trobe University and Honda.

The offer for professional and sophisticated investors opens on Monday.

Post-listing, more than 50 per cent of the shares are expected to still be owned by the board and management.

It expects to list before Christmas and is targeting Friday December 17.