The first quarter of 2021 will go down as the high water mark in pandemic mania. Historically low rates, trillions of dollars in quantitative easing and, practically speaking, billions of people being locked up on and off for the best part of a year led to a frenzy in global finance. Peloton – the fitness equipment maker that had joined the Nasdaq in valuation of $8.
1bn in 2019 (£6.4bn at the time) – rode a tidal wave of demand for at home workouts that helped it to an astronomical market cap of $46bn (then £34bn). Cazoo – the online second-hand car dealer that proclaimed its sector “ripe for disruption” – controversially announced a bumper $7bn (£5bn) IPO on the Nasdaq that valued it at $7bn dollars (£5bn), despite revenue of just £75m the previous year.
And in the private markets, a little known grocery delivery service called Getir – worth $850m at the time – officially entered the UK in January, promising consumers supermarket items in less than 15-minutes. Before June it had raised a funding that valued it at $7.5bn.
Just over three years later, and the triumvirate of high-flying pandemic darlings have all, in the space of less than a month, have suffered inauspicious, ignominious trips back down to earth. Getir was the first to go: announcing its plans to quit the UK and four other key markets, leaving football club Tottenham Hotspur out of pocket to the tune of several million pounds . Then, earlier this week, Peloton – now worth less than a bill.