Firefly Aerospace Sets IPO Terms That Could Push Market Cap Above $5.5 Billion
Firefly on Monday said it plans to sell 16.2 million shares at between $35 and $39 apiece in the IPO.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The cost of doing nothing: How tariffs could cut into peak season profits for e-commerce brands
The cost of doing nothing: How tariffs could cut into peak season profits for e-commerce brands Global e-commerce continues to expand—but profitability is under pressure. With new U.S. tariffs set to take effect Aug. 1 and more trade actions on the horizon, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands are heading into peak season facing rising costs, stricter compliance requirements, and growing uncertainty. According to Passport's 2025 survey of e-commerce leaders, 81% of respondents say tariffs are one of their biggest international challenges. More than half have already experienced increased scrutiny from trade authorities in the past year. But many have yet to adjust their logistics or compliance strategies—putting both margins and customer experience at risk during the most critical sales quarter of the year. In fact, 7 in 8 e-commerce leaders say they've already raised prices (or plan to) during Q4 2025 to offset expected costs from tariffs and de minimis changes. It's a clear signal that brands are bracing for impact. The question is: Will those pricing moves be enough without operational changes behind them? Growth alone no longer guarantees profit. Brands that treat tariffs as a secondary concern may find themselves caught off guard. Passport shares what DTC teams need to know about the rising cost of inaction—and how leading e-commerce brands are preparing now to protect performance through Q4 and beyond. Tariffs Are Reshaping Peak Season Risk Tariff policy isn't just shifting—it's accelerating. Over the past several months, a series of trade developments have added real cost and compliance pressure for e-commerce brands. As we approach peak season, understanding what's already in effect (and what's coming next) is essential to protecting margins and customer experience. What's already in effect: Flat 10% tariff on most imports (effective April 10): A universal 10% tariff now applies to most U.S. imports, replacing country-specific rates for the time being and driving up landed costs across the board. 30% tariff on goods from China and Hong Kong (effective April 10): Chinese-origin products are subject to a combined 30% tariff—10% reciprocal plus 20% trade action—adding significant cost to many e-commerce supply chains. De minimis ended for China and Hong Kong (effective May 2): All shipments now require full customs clearance and are subject to duties, eliminating a key cost-saving mechanism and increasing documentation requirements. Stricter customs enforcement across global markets (ongoing): Authorities in the U.S., EU, and other key regions are stepping up audits and penalties for misclassification, undervaluation, and incomplete documentation—raising the compliance stakes. What's coming Aug. 1: New reciprocal tariffs of up to 50%: Without finalized trade agreements, imports from major U.S. partners—including Brazil, Canada, the EU, and others—could face steep duty increases just as peak shipping volumes ramp up. Together, these changes are driving up costs, complicating customs flows, and increasing the risk of surprise fees or delivery delays—right when brands can least afford it. Global Sales Remain Profitable, Even Amid Rising Complexity Cross-border e-commerce remains a powerful growth engine. In Passport's 2025 whitepaper, 91% of international merchants said global sales are a profitable revenue stream, with half reporting that international orders account for at least 21% of total revenue. But as tariffs rise and trade requirements tighten, that profitability has become harder to protect. Many brands still rely on outdated cross-border models—leaving them exposed to fluctuating costs, customs disruptions, and compliance risks during the most critical sales period of the year. How Leading Brands Are Getting Ahead of Tariffs To stay competitive this peak season, leading DTC brands are reevaluating their fulfillment strategies and approaching global sales with a sharper operational lens. Top-performing teams aren't just reacting to new tariffs—they're building fulfillment infrastructure that supports profit and performance in a more complex trade environment. 1. In-country enablement for high-volume marketsRelocating inventory into key destination markets reduces tariff exposure, improves customs clearance, and opens access to domestic-only sales channels like Amazon and Walmart. It also enables faster shipping, easier returns, and tighter inventory control—key advantages during the holiday rush, when customer expectations are at their peak. In many cases, in-country enablement has shifted from a cost-control tactic to a growth driver. Brands are using it to unlock new revenue streams, meet marketplace requirements, and deliver a better post-purchase experience. 2. Smarter cross-border strategies for emerging marketsFor regions where in-country warehousing isn't yet justified, brands are investing in tools to make cross-border shipping more predictable and cost-effective. This includes calculating landed costs more accurately at checkout, streamlining customs documentation, and collecting tax IDs in applicable markets to avoid delivery delays. Alongside operational improvements, many brands are also revisiting pricing strategies—testing duty-inclusive pricing and experimenting with different shipping configurations to offset rising costs without hurting conversion. These trends have emerged across recent industry research and reflect how leading e-commerce teams are adapting to a more complex cross-border environment. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach, leading brands are segmenting their international strategy—localizing where the volume supports it, optimizing cross-border operations elsewhere, and adjusting pricing in response to evolving tariff and compliance pressures. This level of intentionality is what sets apart brands that grow globally and sustainably. Protecting Peak Season Performance Peak season is not the time to discover hidden tariff costs or compliance issues. With trade conditions changing quickly, brands that wait to adapt risk avoidable delays, margin loss, and customer frustration during their most important sales window. Now's the time to act. Whether through in-country fulfillment, smarter cross-border tools, or both, brands that take steps today will be better positioned to navigate uncertainty—and come out ahead this holiday season. This story was produced by Passport and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump pressures 17 pharma CEOs to cut US drug prices
By Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump sent letters to the chief executives of 17 major pharmaceutical companies, urging immediate action to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Americans, the White House said on Thursday. Letters were sent to top executives at Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Regeneron, Merck & Co, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca, among others. Copies of the letters were posted on Trump's Truth Social account. The president is calling on the companies to extend most favored nation pricing to Medicaid, guarantee such pricing for new drugs, and return excess overseas revenue to American patients and taxpayers, without providing details. Trump has given the companies until September 29 to respond with binding commitments to those terms. "According to recent data, the prices that Americans have been paying for brand name drugs are more than three times the price other similarly developed nations pay," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. She added the administration will "deploy every tool in our arsenal" to end "abusive drug pricing practices."
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Figma Shares Jump 242% in Trading Debut After $1.2 Billion IPO
(Bloomberg) -- Figma Inc. shares surged as much as 242% after the design software maker and some of its shareholders raised $1.2 billion in an IPO, with the trading valuing the company far above the $20 billion mark it would have reached in a now-scrapped merger with Adobe Inc. The World's Data Center Capital Has Residents Surrounded An Abandoned Art-Deco Landmark in Buffalo Awaits Revival We Should All Be Biking Along the Beach Budapest's Most Historic Site Gets a Controversial Rebuild San Francisco in Talks With Vanderbilt for Downtown Campus Shares of the San Francisco-based firm traded at $112.77 each on Thursday as of 2:08 p.m. in New York, well in excess of an IPO price of $33 apiece, before they were halted a second time for volatility. The shares were marketed for $30 to $32 per share, after the company increased the range earlier in the week. The company sold 12.47 million shares in the IPO, which priced Tuesday, while investors including Index Ventures, Greylock Partners and Kleiner Perkins sold 24.46 million shares. The trading gives Figma a market value of nearly $55 billion, based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings. Accounting for employee stock options and restricted stock units, and restricted stock units for Chief Executive Officer Dylan Field, which are subject to vesting conditions, the fully diluted value is well above $65 billion. The valuation easily trounces the $20 billion valuation Figma would have fetched in the agreed sale to Adobe that fell apart in 2023. Field's stake in the company is approaching $4.9 billion at the last price shares traded at before being halted. The soaring share price also puts into play the performance-based awards Field has, including a 10-year 'moon-shot' compensation package awarded just last month that begins to vest once the 60-day average stock price tops $60. The highest hurdle requires shares to top $130. The shares offered in Figma's IPO were ultimately more than 40 times oversubscribed, with more than half of the orders receiving no stock, Bloomberg News reported. The robust demand points to a strong open for the first sizable software offering in the US since SailPoint Inc.'s debut in February. Figma is used to design web and mobile application interfaces. It has expanded its suite of products in an attempt to be more useful for software development and general workplace collaboration. Like many software firms, Figma charges clients based on the number of users and the kind of seat those users have. It added Dev Mode to the platform in 2023 to enable closer collaboration with developers, and has more recently incorporated AI technology into many of its own tools. This year it introduced Figma Make, an AI-based product that lets the user turn prompts into functional prototypes. Now that the company is public, 'we have to continue to sprint, to push hard, and we can't let the public markets distract us,' Field said in an interview. Going public allows Figma to have a big brand moment which centers the importance of design, Field said. 'This is a time where we can create tremendous value for our community, our customers, and I think the public market is the right place to do it.' The company is growing quickly, with a 46% year on year increase in first-quarter revenue. What Bloomberg Intelligence Says Figma's profitability, highlighted by an adjusted gross margin around 92%, tracks above even its most well-established software peers, giving the company ample flexibility to invest in new products and markets. - Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard, technology analysts Click here to read the research. A key question for Figma's long-term success is whether it can become a tool used pervasively used by office workers beyond designers. The company's suite of tools is seeing strong adoption by software developers, product managers, and marketers, said Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia Capital and a member of Figma's board. Sequoia, one of the most storied Silicon Valley venture firms, first invested in Figma in 2019. Around this time, companies were beginning to adopt Figma's product en masse, Reed said. The use of AI-focused software creation apps which are potential competitors to Figma, such as Lovable and Bolt, has rapidly increased this year. Weaving AI features through Figma is a top priority, Field said. 'We have so much room to explore how we can make great AI products and experiences.' In a separate interview with Bloomberg TV, Field reiterated his pledge from the IPO filing's founder letter that the company would pursue M&A at scale. There's so much out there which can be applicable to the company in terms of product design and development, he added. 'It has to be an amazing team, an amazing asset, and has to be something where we think the team is culturally consistent.' IPO Volume Climbs The IPO has lifted the volume of first-time share sales on US exchanges above last year's pace. There has been more than $21 billion worth of US first-time share sales in the year to date, excluding financial vehicles such as blank-check companies, just behind the $20.2 billion raised in the same period in 2024, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Demand for Figma's IPO was likely helped by an order-taking process similar to an auction. Prospective investors in Figma's offering were asked to precisely state the number of shares they wish to buy and at what price, a person familiar with the matter has said. Field will continue to control the company with 74.1% of the votes after the IPO through his holdings of Class B shares that have 15 votes each, the filings show. The CEO and fellow Brown University student Evan Wallace started Figma in 2012. Field attended Brown for two and a half years before accepting a Thiel Fellowship, the Peter Thiel-backed program that provides funding to young entrepreneurs, provided they drop out of school. Figma was widely embraced by designers who warmed to its browser-based interface, replacing previous methods of collaboration involving sharing files individually. Figma had net income of $44.9 million and revenue of $228 million in the three-month period ended March 31, according to its filings. It reported revenue growth in 2024, though rising operating expenses contributed to a net loss of $732 million for the year. Adobe, a maker of software for creative professionals, walked away from the deal to buy Figma following clashes with regulators. It paid a $1 billion termination fee. The offering was led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Allen & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. The company's stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FIG. --With assistance from Katie Roof, Natalia Kniazhevich, Tom Maloney, Eric J. Weiner and Matt Turner. (Updates with trading in first two paragraphs and CEO's stake in sixth paragraph.) Russia Builds a New Web Around Kremlin's Handpicked Super App Burning Man Is Burning Through Cash Everyone Loves to Hate Wind Power. Scotland Found a Way to Make It Pay Off It's Not Just Tokyo and Kyoto: Tourists Descend on Rural Japan Cage-Free Eggs Are Booming in the US, Despite Cost and Trump's Efforts ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
