Autodoc CFO on the failed IPO – and what happens next

The view from the Autodoc management office has a West Berlin feel: Ku'damm, Bahnhof Zoo, and the pompous Theater des Westens. However, the drama has likely taken place less on the musical stage and more in the glass office building itself.

Autodoc originally planned to go public on June 25th and raise up to 464 million euros from investors. It would have been the largest IPO of the year to date in the so-called Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange—thus requiring particularly stringent transparency requirements.

But the evening before, the appointment was suddenly canceled. The IPO was "postponed," as the press release stated. Two weeks later, the investigation is apparently not yet fully complete. "Postponing the IPO was a difficult step," says CFO Lennart Schmidt in an interview with Gründerszene. "We've been working toward this for months." Autodoc has since tried to smooth things over. And Schmidt speaks in detail with Gründerszene about the events.

The situation is unique in that it wasn't the company's first failed IPO. The first act of the drama took place in 2021. Back then, the Berlin-based company wanted to go public during the pandemic-induced e-commerce boom. Targeted valuation: up to 6 billion euros.