One of the largest fintech IPOs: Chime neobank shares started trading

Preliminary trading in shares of mobile banking platform Chime Financial has begun on the Freedom client trading system. The securities are available by ticker CHYM. Later on Thursday, June 12, they will appear on the Nasdaq exchange. A major placement by a fintech company could be a landmark, with some investors calling it the «canary in the mine,» that is, a marker that will show the state of the overall market and the level of investor appetite.

Fintech company Chime and some of its shareholders raised $864 million in an IPO on the Nasdaq exchange, offering 32 million shares at $27 -above the top end of its previously announced price range ($24-26), Reuters reports.

Based on the listing price, the neobank's market capitalization exceeded $9.8 billion - based on the number of outstanding shares listed in documents Chime filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fully diluted valuation, which also takes into account employee stock options and restricted stock, was about $11.6 billion. That's still significantly below the company's peak valuation of $25 billion, which it received in a 2021 funding round - at which time it raised $750 million. 

Lead organizers of IPO were Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan. Demand from investors exceeded the supply of shares by more than 10 times, according to Bloomberg data, which according to Seeking Alpha.

Chime plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures. 

San Francisco-based fintech company Chime was founded in 2012. It offers consumers a mobile platform with free accounts and financial tools. These services are similar to banking services, with Chime itself not having a banking license - and instead partnering with Bancorp Bank and Stride Bank. The company's business model is to generate revenue primarily not from user fees and deposits, but from processing fees paid by card networks and merchants for transactions made by its customers using branded debit and credit cards.

As of March 31, 2025, Chime reported 8.6 million active members - up 82% from three years ago - with 67% of them relying on it as their primary financial partner, consistently depositing their paychecks and making day-to-day expenses, the IPO filing shows. In the first quarter, active customers used the platform for an average of 54 transactions per month. In the year ended March 31, $121 billion in payments passed through the Chime system.

By the end of 2024, Chime's net loss narrowed to 39 cents per share - compared to a loss of $3.22 in 2023. In the first quarter of 2025, the company managed to achieve a profit of $12.9 million. The company's revenue from payments increased last year by 25%, and from the use of other services on the online platform by 54%. The total amount amounted to $1.7 billion. Revenue from January to March 2025 jumped 32% year-on-year to $518.7 million.

Chime estimates its addressable market at $86 billion and believes, it can grow that to $426 billion by expanding its user base and their average annual earnings.

The company's largest pre-IPO investors included Yuri Milner's DST Global and Crosslink Capital, which held 17% and 9.5% stakes, respectively, CNBC notes. Other investors include Leonid Blavatnik's Access Industries, General Atlantic, Menlo Ventures, Cathay Innovation and Iconiq.

Freedom Broker forecasts Chime's revenue to grow to $6.4 billion by 2034 - by expanding its user base and increasing the number of products, explains investment analyst Alem Bektemirov. He set a target for the companies' shares at $33.4, suggesting a potential upside of nearly a quarter to the offering price.

At the same time, in case of a slowdown in revenue growth or weaker operating margin growth, the company's valuation could drop significantly, Bektemirov warns. If Chime is unable to attract new participants and retain current ones, as well as maintain relations with partner banks, this will also have a negative impact on the valuation, Freedom writes.

According to Launchpad Capital general partner Ryan Gilbert, Chime is a business that has spent a lot of money to attract customers, quotesCNBC. According to its IPO filing, the company paid the NBA club Dallas Mavericks about $33 million over three years to put its logo on players' uniforms. Now it will have to prove it can justify that marketing investment and retain customers amid competition from players like Square, PayPal and SoFi, Gilbert says.

Matt Kennedy, senior IPO strategist at Renaissance Capital predicts that the excitement sweeping the IPO market will spread to Chime. He believes the company will also be helped by the FOMO (fear of missing out) effect: it has «brand recognition, growth, and a lot more people are following the IPO market now than they were a month ago. When traders see that spikes are possible - it immediately generates interest,» he said. Kennedy did not rule out a sharp rise in Chime's stock.  

«These [fintech] companies are really solving a real problem. They are established, large businesses with a much better product,» said Barron's Ryan Falvey, managing partner of Restive Ventures, a venture capital firm that has invested in another mobile bank, Dave. «The traditional financial industry is poorly serving a significant portion of consumers,» Falvey commented on the benefits of neobanks.

Chime's IPO was one of the largest among U.S. fintech companies in recent years, Reuters notes. For a long time, this market was stagnant - high interest rates and declining valuations kept many mature startups from initial public offerings. Now it is reviving: shares of trading platform eToro jumped by 29% after listing on Nasdaq in May, and last week the IPO held cryptocurrency company Circle, its securities also rose sharply. At the same time, one of the most highly anticipated offerings - online lender Klarna - has been postponed.

Chime was also expected to IPO earlier, but the debut was postponed after Donald Trump's announcement of increased duties on a number of countries caused turmoil in financial markets, Reuters reports. The neobank's decision to list will be a major test of investor interest in the mass consumer-oriented fintech, considers CNBC.  

Chime's sharp decline in value relative to its 2021 investment round reflects a new reality for startups that raised funds at exorbitant valuations at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg reminds us. Instacart and ServiceTitan are among those whose IPOs fell below levels reached in funding rounds in 2021. At the same time, shares of both companies rose more than 50% after going public, the agency writes. 

The recent surge in offerings has prompted more companies to renew their plans - June has become a key window of opportunity, with businesses looking to take advantage of a relatively stable market environment before the traditional summer slump.  «I think Chime will be looked at as sort of the canary in the mine,» veteran fintech investor David Golden told CNBC. - «If all goes well - and that will become clear within two to three months - you'll see interest [in the IPO] from other companies increase dramatically.

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Freedom Broker clients will be able to trade Chime Financial shares before the opening of the main exchange session. Trading will begin in the early pre-market format 2-3 hours before the opening of the US exchanges (from 15:30-16:30 Astana time). To participate, click on the ticker CHYM.US..