Ron Johnson’s Enjoy Gets Ready for Wall Street
Ron Johnson is stepping back out into the limelight with his next big idea.
The retail lightning rod — who helped make Target chic and built a brick-and-mortar powerhouse at Apple only to fall short at J.C. Penney — is officially on his way to Wall Street with his high-end retail services business Enjoy.
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Shareholders of the Marquee Raine Acquisition Corp. SPAC signed off on a merger with Enjoy on Wednesday, giving the “commerce at home” company more than $450 million in growth capital and an enterprise value of $1.2 billion.
Marquee will rename itself Enjoy Technology Inc. and trade under the ticker symbol “ENJY” once the deal closes in the fourth quarter.
Enjoy is looking to shake up physical retail (even more) with a high-touch model that goes right to people’s home.
“We believe our disruptive ‘commerce at home’ platform can do everything a store can do but better, as our full-time experts deliver deeply personalized experiences in the comfort of customers’ homes,” Johnson has said.
When shoppers turn to Enjoy to buy, say, an iPhone or Apple Watch, the company dispatches a van stuffed with goodies and an expert, ready to help them connect their new gadget and then sell additional goods on the spot.
The in-home process is powered by proprietary technology, data science and human connection.
Enjoy has commercial relationships with AT&T and Apple in the U.S., BT Group in the U.K. and Rogers Communications in Canada, which pay “a variety of service, set-up and delivery fees.”
It’s a new business model going after a big pool of money.
“As the retail market increasingly shifts toward ‘commerce at home,’ Enjoy has a significant near-term revenue opportunity in a $265 billion total addressable market in its current categories,” Marquee said in paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that details the deal. “With its asset-light model, near-zero customer acquisition costs and significant early infrastructure investments, that opportunity will only grow as the company moves into new geographies and product categories.”
Enjoy is targeting more than $1 billion in annual revenue by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate of 78 percent over five years.
So while Johnson and team have laid the groundwork, most of the company’s potential lies in the future.
Revenues in 2020 — a year complicated by the pandemic — rose 32.1 percent to $60.3 million while losses expanded to $157.8 million from $89.7 million the year before.
That puts Johnson on the clock and rushing to help Enjoy grow into its valuation.
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