Portrait of a winning IPO

This cash-poor Internet start-up came to Bain looking for strategic advice to prepare it for an initial public offering. Bain worked with the client to address its strategy and capital problems with a new strategy aligned to market objectives. Several months later, the start-up made a very successful IPO and realized a 22x increase in market cap.

InternetPhone wanted to go public, but lacked the strategic focus and funding know-how to make its business take off.

InternetPhone was a start-up company founded to provide phone-to-phone global Internet telephony.

Although the company's founders had a track record of successful high-tech start-ups, the company was dangerously close to failing due to excessive cash burn.

The company needed a clear strategy, venture capital and funding guidance.

Bain's mission was to offer strategic advice to solve InternetPhone's problems and prepare it for an initial public offering.

View Approach

By addressing InternetPhone's strategy and cash-flow issues in tandem, Bain was able to develop a successful new strategy for the company.

View Recommendations

Bain led efforts to secure new financing for InternetPhone and pave the way for an IPO. To support this, it recommended a new corporate strategy and implementation steps.

View Results

Several months after working with Bain, the start-up made a very successful IPO. InternetPhone was rewarded with a remarkable increase in market capitalization.