华尔街日报报道，美国POS贷款公司Affirm 正在考虑IPO, 估值一百亿美元。

创始人也是PayPal的联合创始人。

Affirm 也有可能走后门上市之路，即与上市了的封闭式专门基金Spac 公司合并。这个方式越来越时髦了。

在次贷领域的金融科技公司中，失敗者众，大都是“上市之前香，上市之后臭”。著名的失望包括 GreenSky Inc, On Deck, Funding Circle, Amigo Holdings, LendingClub, 和一批中国的fintech 企业。

唯一的例外是澳洲的AfterPay。Afterpay 去年打入英国、美国，势如破竹，五月获得腾讯3亿澳元入股。

鏈接在此。[web_link-http://t.cn/A6ypuKae]网页链接

Affirm Prepares IPO That Could Value Fintech Firm at Up to $10 Billion.

Point-of-sale lender is working with Goldman Sachs in early-stage discussions of a potential listing.

Affirm Inc. is laying the groundwork for an initial public offering that could value the financial-technology startup at as much as $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The point-of-sale lender is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on a potential listing, the people said. The preparations are at an early stage and the company may not move forward with one. Affirm could also sell itself, potentially to a so-called blank-check company, they said.

Affirm offers online shoppers the ability to pay for goods in installments through short-term loans. The option to finance purchases with Affirm appears on the websites of thousands of merchants ranging from Walmart Inc. to Expedia Group Inc. Earlier this month Affirm said it was joining with Shopify Inc. to make the function available to the fast-growing e-commerce platform’s merchants, expanding its reach further.

Affirm was valued at $2.9 billion in April 2019, according to PitchBook, but its target has risen since then—to more than $5 billion and possibly as high as $10 billion, some of the people said. Depending on market conditions and how quickly the company decides to move, its shares could begin trading this year.

Affirm began in 2012. Its founder is Chief Executive Max Levchin, who earlier hit it big when he co-founded the company that is now PayPal Holdings Inc. with Peter Thiel. Affirm’s investors include venture-capital firms Founders Fund and Lightspeed Venture Partners as well as mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments.

Other companies that offer online point-of-sale loans include PayPal, whose shares are up more than 70% in 2020, and Sweden’s Klarna Bank AB, which recently sold a stake to Chinese payment giant Ant Group Co.

The new-issue market has warmed up after slowing dramatically in March as the pandemic roiled markets. Since May, companies including Warner Music Group Corp. and ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. have launched IPOs, and investors welcomed their debuts. That has emboldened more companies to revisit listing plans. Palantir Technologies Inc. and DoorDash Inc. are considering late-summer or fall IPOs, according to people familiar with the matter.

Companies going public are increasingly doing so through a merger with a blank-check company, or special-purpose acquisition company. These companies raise money with the sole purpose of making an acquisition. After the acquisition is completed, which requires shareholder approval, the purchased company takes the blank-check company’s spot trading on an exchange.

DraftKings Inc. used a SPAC to go public earlier this year, and this month healthcare-services provider MultiPlan Inc. said it would merge with one in an $11 billion deal. Though SPACs are a buzzy product now, their performance in the past has lagged behind the broader market, and they have struggled until recently to earn respect from brand-name companies.

Investor interest in the fintech industry, which digitizes functions such as payments and lending, has exploded as consumers increasingly shop and manage their finances online—a trend that has only been hastened by the coronavirus pandemic. Recent splashy IPOs include Lemonade Inc., which sells insurance policies online and through a mobile app.

Some of the largest merger deals of the year also involve fintech startups, including Visa Inc.’s purchase of Plaid Inc. and Intuit Inc.’s acquisition of Credit Karma Inc.

Some past offerings of upstart digital lenders haven't lived up to lofty expectations, however. Firms have struggled with challenges such as brutal competition, higher-than-anticipated defaults and spikes in funding costs. On Deck Capital Inc. went public in a high-profile 2014 listing that valued it at well over $1 billion. The small-business lender announced a deal this month to be acquired for just $90 million.

More recently, another online buy-now-pay-later company, Australia-based Afterpay Ltd., has soared in value this year. It became the country’s largest listed tech company by market value on the back of a pandemic-sparked shift to online shopping there. Afterpay has expanded to the U.S., where it added 1.6 million new users over four months earlier this year.