What about the OATLY brand? Oatmeal milk from tens of thousands of cafes will also be on the market!

Another "Internet celebrity" brand is ready to go public.

OATLY, the world's largest oatmeal brand, has filed a confidential document with the US Securities Regulatory Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO) on Feb. 23, according to foreign media reports.

OATLY could be valued at as much as $10 billion, but OATLY declined to comment and OATLY has not disclosed more details about IPO, according to people familiar with the matter.

However, as early as last year, there were media reports about OATLY seeking to go public. In August last year, people said that OATLY will go public in the next 18-24 months and may raise $100 million in growth capital from international investors in the first half of 2021. In addition, in early February this year, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and other media reported that plant-based beverage and food brand OATLY is seeking IPO. It is expected to land on the New York Stock Exchange as soon as May.

In fact, the rapid expansion of OATLY is not surprising. In the past few years, with the craze of artificial meat, the plant base has also begun to develop into a new round of domestic craze.

As the oatmeal milk provided by OATLY has the characteristics of low fat, 0 cholesterol, health and environmental protection, coupled with lactose intolerance and other factors, OATLY oatmeal milk has become a milk substitute in many cafes. OATLY quickly became popular on the Internet, and this product can be seen on platforms such as Little Red Book.

Before that, OATLY was already a well-deserved "Internet celebrity" before entering China. According to media statistics, OATLY's revenue increased tenfold from 2017 to 2018. By 2019, OATLY's revenue was about 200 million US dollars. It is obvious that this figure is about twice that of the previous year. At that time, it also planned to double sales in 2020, for the new year 2021. Zhang Chunzeng, president of Oatly Asia, said: total Asian sales of OATLY are expected to reach nearly 100 million bottles in 2021.

According to public data, OATLY is a Swedish plant food and beverage brand, founded in 1994, and its products include oatmeal beverages, oatmeal porridge, plant-based ice cream and so on. Oat milk products retain the essential substance β-glucan of oats as much as possible with patented enzyme technology, and are loved by the American plant milk market after entering the US market in 2016. according to statistics, by 2020, Oatmeal milk has overtaken soy milk to become the second largest plant milk category by sales in the United States.

The Chinese market is also one of the hot areas of development. After OATLY officially entered the Chinese market in early 2018, it has been favored by many investors.

For Chinese consumers, learning that the brand may be mostly through cafes, OALTY quickly opened up the market in China through a partnership with boutique cafes.

Interface News previously reported that after entering the United States earlier, OATLY quickly settled in more than 2500 coffee shops, while after entering China, it only took a year and a half to log on to 2000 coffee shops.

So far, OALTY has been stationed in tens of thousands of cafes across the country.

In April last year, Starbucks partnered with OATLY to launch three "plant oat milk"-based drinks: oat lattes, oat matcha lattes, and time-limited new raspberry oat black tea macchiato. Consumers can also choose to change Starbucks drinks to oatmeal milk at no extra cost.

Starbucks' partnership with OATLY made many people think that this is an important step for OATLY to further move from a "boutique niche" to mass retail in the Chinese market. Toni Petersson, global CEO of OATLY, also said at that time: "Starbucks China currently has more than 4300 stores, which will undoubtedly bring more opportunities for Chinese consumers to taste and learn about oatmeal milk drinks, which will greatly promote the development of plant milk market." Of course, in addition to the world's largest coffee chain brand, Pacific Coffee, three-and-a-half Coffee brands are also partners of OATLY.

It is worth noting that Howard Schultz, former chairman and CEO of Starbucks, also invested in OATLY because OATLY bundled coffee sales.

In July, OATLY received an investment of $200m, or about 10 per cent of its company, including former Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, famous talk show host Oprah Oprah, actress Natalie Portman and Roc Nation, an entertainment organization founded by rapper Jay-Z. As for the investment at that time, OATLY said that a new round of financing would be used to expand its business and improve the production and distribution capacity of its products.

But according to the media, OATLY may have sold a small stake in preparation for IPO. The company has been in talks with Goldman Sachs on IPO since 2019, but has not yet decided on the final IPO partner.

Today, in addition to cooperation with boutique cafes, OATLY's sales channels also include retail, e-commerce and special canals. It is understood that OATLY has entered more than 20 countries around the world and has three factories. At present, a number of oat-based products have been launched in the Chinese market, and China has become one of the most important growth markets in the world.

* Image source: Internet