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As the frothy markets continue to show an unwinding, rotation, or both(?), we’ve started to really look for opportunities that we think are not sound and could help bring down net exposure.
In our past, we’ve profiled IPOs that we think are interesting, or not. For the most part, our findings led us to identify IPOs we believed had issues, and thus either warranted taking short positions (once able) or passing completely.
Take a look below at our track record for our reports regarding IPOs.
We think we possibly found one that smells particularly bad and of desperation. That company is called Gloo Holdings and will trade under the ticker GLOO.
Key Points
Gloo Holdings (GLOO) is a technology company solely founded and designed to serve faith-based religious organizations was looking to raise ~$100 million at a price between $10 and $12/share.
As of November 18th, they were able to price 9.1 million shares at $8/share. $2 below the bottom end of the range → not a great start (>$630M market cap on ~$41M in L12M sales; ~15.4x LTM sales).
They generate revenue through enterprise SaaS solutions and advertising for Churches and Frontline Organizations (CFLs → pastors, ministers, etc) and Network Capability Providers (NCPs → the companies that equip CFLs with products and services, i.e., tech, content, marketing, and donor services).
Analyzing the company’s registration documents, GLOO’s primary growth driver is implementing a roll-up strategy that seems to yield mainly inorganic growth.
Despite its founding in 2013, it still does not seem to have found a business model that works and continues to throw wet spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks → burning cash + rolling layoffs.
GLOO has invested in or completed 15 acquisitions over the years in the hopes of generating an “ecosystem” for a one-stop shop faith marketplace, but results have yet to show for it.
While revenue has grown nearly 3x y/y through July 31, 2025, primarily through acquisitions, net margins have barely budged (-245% 1H’25 vs -259% 1H’24).
The company seems to have issues growing organically, no sense of strategy or direction, burning through cash in order to figure it out, touting its “AI” capabilities and initiatives (mentions AI 224x), and appears to be going public out of desperation rather than to support strong growth.
We think that, while trying to support a noble cause, the company stinks to high heaven, and will continue to hemorrhage cash, most likely need to raise again, diluting shareholders further than what will happen from the IPO (converting a lot of their preferreds and converts to Class B shares).
While we’ve done great work calling out sketchy past IPOs, this is the first time we’ve outright said that this company could be a zero.
Disclaimer: CGCM does not have a position in the company (yet) and did not partake in the IPO.
Let’s begin.
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Quick Business Overview
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