Sunny Gutta is Director, Treasury, at Reddit.
Taking a technology company public is a milestone that brings both opportunity and complexity. While the spotlight often shines on the IPO day, it’s the careful orchestration behind the scenes—including support from corporate treasury teams—that determines long-term success. Treasury is pivotal in planning, executing and sustaining financial strategies before, during and after the IPO. For tech companies, unique challenges require a tailored approach.
Through my academic and professional experiences, I’ve developed the TechTreasury IPO Framework (TIF), a practical blueprint for treasury teams preparing to go public in the U.S. I had the opportunity to apply and further fine-tune this through my hands-on experience as part of the team that supported Reddit’s 2024 IPO.
What Makes The Treasury Function In Tech Companies Different?
Technology’s IPO pipeline is robust, with companies such as Klarna, StubHub, Discord, Databricks, Stripe and many others preparing for their market debuts. These technology companies have a few unique aspects like hypergrowth, expanding international presence, reliance on equity compensation and complex capital structure that make TIF different from traditional IPO frameworks.
Tech IPO candidates often experience over 20% annual revenue growth, rapid cash burn and complex forecasting needs. For example, CoreWeave’s revenue soared 700% year over year ahead of its 2025 IPO, but it experienced a roughly $863 million net loss for 2024. Treasury in tech companies must ensure efficient cash management, accurate forecasting and liquidity to support rapid scaling.
Early-stage international expansion requires careful legal and tax entity structuring, banking setup, capital planning and foreign exchange management. Complex cap tables with multiple share classes and voting rights demand robust planning to ensure the company is leveraging the right instrument to raise capital. Additionally, technology companies rely significantly on equity compensation to attract talent. Treasury must manage employee liquidity expectations and tax-related outflows at vesting.
The TechTreasury IPO Framework
This framework can act as a blueprint for corporate treasury teams in technology companies to support IPO readiness and the transition to a newly public company. It organizes IPO readiness around four interdependent “pillars”—processes, platforms, policy and people.
Processes
There are many critical processes that finance teams of a soon-to-be public technology company need to chart out and implement.
Strategic liquidity management encompasses cash management and reporting, short- and long-term cash forecasting and bank structure optimization. For capital structure planning, assess capital needs pre- and post-IPO, manage debt and plan for credit facilities to ensure flexibility.
Consider employee liquidity. Address employee expectations, especially with IPO lockup periods. Consider pre-IPO liquidity options, such as secondary sales, loan programs or tender offers using either company cash or cash from investors. For example, Stripe leveraged the tender offer route to provide employee liquidity.
To manage risk and governance, strengthen internal controls (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley compliance) and implement risk programs. Risk management strategies include:
• Paying to mitigate risks. This allows companies to address risks within acceptable thresholds. Examples are hedging foreign exchange risks or interest rate risks beyond specific thresholds.
• Paying to transfer risks by utilizing insurance policies. Examples include management liability insurance programs like directors and officers insurance, cyber insurance or general liability insurances like workers’ compensation policy or property and casualty insurance.
• Paying to accept risks, wherein certain risks are acknowledged and disclosed to external stakeholders.
Develop comprehensive frameworks for financial analysis valuation that incorporate methods suited to tech firms, such as discounted cash flow, peer comparables (often revenue multiples) and the Rule of 40 or Rule of X (combining growth and margin metrics often by weighting the growth and margin differently).
Platforms
Select and implement the right tools to support treasury processes, such as cash/liquidity management systems ranging from niche solutions built in-house using APIs to complex SaaS-based treasury management systems. Cash forecasting systems and models that increasingly leverage AI/ML can forecast cash and run scenarios. Valuation models will typically be built internally in partnership with FP&A. Consider other niche platforms such as bank access management solutions, investment management and reporting portals, and market information systems.
Policies
Develop clear policies to formalize the processes and use or access of platforms. Common policies to consider are investment policy, counterparty exposure policy, treasury operations policy, foreign exchange policy and internal process control documents.
People
The alignment of structure with strategy and proper staffing is the most critical pillar for any company, regardless of its stage in the public company journey. Build a treasury team with not just the right skills for IPO execution and ongoing public company requirements, but also a team that can stay agile and execute creative solutions in tandem with evolving market conditions.
Practical Application And Limitations
The focus of the framework is pre-IPO readiness:
• Start early. Begin applying TIF at least 12 months before your target IPO date. Review recent S-1 filings and learn from peer companies’ regulatory feedback.
• Tailor the framework. Adapt TIF to your company’s unique structure and growth stage.
• Evolve with the market. Treasury frameworks should be dynamic, evolving with market and regulatory changes.
There are various aspects of the IPO itself that need additional involvement from treasurers, which are not in the scope of this framework. The framework is meant to support and not override the due diligence needed as part of the IPO process.
Closing Thoughts
Recent market volatility has proven that IPO readiness is not just about timing but about building resilience and adaptability into every treasury process. The TechTreasury IPO Framework is designed to help treasury teams at technology companies prepare for IPOs with confidence, even in uncertain market conditions. By focusing on the right processes, platforms, policies and people, treasury can drive a smooth transition to public markets and support sustainable growth.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
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