Floward’s IPO

In October 2023, Abdulaziz Al Loughani, Co-founder and CEO of Floward, was to deliver a keynote at the 2nd LBS MENA Startup Competition. He was still turning over the same questions he’d had on his mind earlier that day in a company-wide town hall: how to balance growth and profitability, and how to provide liquidity to his investors while ensuring the long-term mission of his company. The road to this moment began in 2016 with a troubled investment in Q8 Flowers. Rather than walk away, Al Loughani and partners rebranded as Floward, rebuilt the operating model and pursued a pure-play e-commerce approach with end-to-end control over sourcing, production and last-mile delivery—pairing it with discipline in unit economics. After early traction in Kuwait, the home country of Al Loughani, the team decided to expand into Saudi Arabia despite a not-so-strong flower culture. They funded their early growth through successive rounds of FF and a family office. Their first institutional investor was the Saudi venture capital fund Impact46, which was approached right before the pandemic. COVID became an accelerant: Floward grew from three to 17 cities in 2020, revenues scaled 50x through 2021 and the company expanded to multiple cities. A USD 27.5 million Series B led by STV funded further expansion and tech capacity, and by late 2022 Floward crossed USD 150 million in revenue, broadened into gifting bundles and executed its first acquisition - Mubkhar - rapidly scaling it from four to 34 outlets and launching its e-commerce. The February 2023 Series C was announced as a pre-IPO round, including funding for some additional acquisitions. The dilemma is now sharply defined. The clock was ticking: If Floward wanted to list in a year, the team must decide its listing venue and select lead banks within weeks. And one unsettling counterfactual lingered: if a highly attractive trade sale offer from a big strategic player or buyout from a private equity fund materialised, would shareholders prefer it over the IPO? What would better serve the shareholders, the employees, the management team and Floward’s long-term mission?