StubHub IPO

Photo Credit: Redd Francisco

StubHub is moving forward with its highly anticipated initial public offering, undeterred by soft financial results for H1 2025. The secondary ticketing giant is aiming for a public valuation of $16 billion, even though this quarter’s earnings reveal persistent losses and only modest revenue growth.

StubHub reported a 3% rise in revenue to $828 million for H1 2025, a modest gain compared to previous periods. Gross merchandise sales, the total value of ticket transactions on the platform, hit $4.4 billion, up 11% year-over-year. This improvement in transaction volume did not translate into profitability for the ticketing giant, as costs and debt pressures continue to weigh heavily.

The company posted a net loss of $76 million in H1 2025, more than tripling the loss from the same period in 2024. Nearly all of this loss is attributed to growing interest payments on StubHub’s substantial $2.38 billion long-term debt, alongside unfavorable foreign currency movements. Despite these setbacks, StubHub’s IPO ambitions remain steadfast as the company pushes forward in seeking to join peers such as Live Nation and Vivid Seats on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

“StubHub has refiled its IPO prospectus on August 11, showing a wider quarterly loss for the first quarter of 2025, even as the revenue jumped from a year earlier,” reads one industry report. The choice to proceed with an IPO follows a previous postponement; last year StubHub delayed its IPO in response to market volatility. A source speaking to The Wall Street Journal cited those market conditions in 2024 as a ‘tricky time’ for companies looking to go public.

StubHub facilitated sales of over 40 million tickets in 2024, connecting more than one million sellers to buyers across the globe. New regulatory challenges, including mandatory all-in pricing, have had a negative effect on the growth of the North American secondary ticketing market this year by 10%—reflected in StubHub’s revenue performance.