For several years, I’ve chased down rumor after rumor about new funding rounds for Stitch Fix, the online retailer and styling service that sends personalized boxes full of clothing to customer doors.
The online fashion startup Stitch Fix has $730 million in annual revenue and is profitable
Next? Probably an IPO.
Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.
And each time, they led to a dead end. Stitch Fix still hasn’t raised any funding since a $25 million round led by Benchmark in 2014, it turns out, but many e-commerce industry insiders couldn’t figure out how.
Here’s one answer: The company has been cash-flow positive since 2014 and profitable on a net income basis since 2015, a company exec said today.
Stitch Fix’s revenue has also experienced torrid growth during that time, resulting in annual revenue of $730 million for the fiscal year ending in July of 2016, the company said in a blog post and a New York Times feature this morning.
The announcement comes as traditional department stores are struggling and leaving an opening for digital-first competitors to make inroads — both with customers and brands looking for new channels to boost sales.
The timing also coincides with new Amazon moves toward offering a styling service, with a new Alexa device that gives fashion advice and a growing number of clothing brands built in-house.
Barring a giant acquisition offer, many industry insiders expect the next stop to be an IPO for Stitch Fix. If I were a betting man, I’d place a decent-sized wager on a 2018 offering.
In the meantime, here’s my interview with founder and CEO Katrina Lake at our Code Commerce Series event from March of this year.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
