Why Luca Netz Will Be ‘Disappointed’ If Pudgy Penguins Doesn’t IPO Within 2 Years

Pudgy Penguins is on track to clock a record $50 million in revenue this year, according to its CEO Luca Netz—the culmination of a years-long play to plaster the popular IP across corners of the world typically unchartered by Web3 projects, including arcades, storybooks, and even major retailers like Walmart. 

But Netz is already looking ahead to Pudgies’ march to an even larger and far more lucrative arena over the next two years: Wall Street.  

In an interview with Decrypt, Netz said he would like to see shares of Pudgy Penguins trade on a public exchange by 2027. 

“I would love to [go public] in the next two years,” he said, adding that a timeline for the would-be public listing is contingent upon Pudgy’s revenue growth. “I think if we don’t IPO in the next two years, I’d be disappointed in myself.”

And if it doesn’t pan out by that deadline, “hold me accountable,” Netz said.

Pudgy’s aim to go public comes as the firm experiments with various business verticals amid an IPO revival in the U.S. that has pumped massive amounts of capital into tech companies, in particular. 

More than 220 firms have listed their shares on public exchanges year-to-date, up nearly 90% from the 117 companies that debuted on the U.S. stock market in the first eight months of 2024, according to markets research website StockAnalysis.com.

Amid that IPO resurgence, several digital assets firms have jumped into the fray, filing to go public as U.S. President Donald Trump ratchets back federal regulations for the industry. 

Stablecoin issuer Circle unveiled its blockbuster IPO in early June, notching more than $1 billion in profits. Just two months later, crypto exchange Bullish debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, while competitors Gemini and Kraken are gearing up to follow suit.  

Pudgy is attempting to capitalize on growing public interest in digital assets-linked firms by working with finance experts to make Pudgy Penguins and its associated decentralized-finance token PENGU more accessible to retail and institutional investors.

Earlier this year, the company shepherded asset manager Canary Capital’s proposal to debut an exchange-traded fund tracking the prices of the PENGU meme coin and Pudgy Penguins NFTs. More recently, the Pudgy team was in talks with public companies to hold PENGU on their balance sheets—the results of which could play out over the next three months.

“The understanding of traditional finance just gets me super excited,” Netz said.  “There’s so much more capital inflows and accessibility.”  

To that end, the Pudgy team, which maintains its headquarters in Miami, is considering spending more time in New York, the heart of the public markets. 

“Every time me and a couple other guys from the company go there, we just get done in two days what would take us five days here,” Netz said. “Every day, every hour, every minute counts, and New York just moves at an incredible pace that I think is super necessary if you want to win.”

No public listing? No problem 

Although it’s unclear whether Pudgy will be able to court investors for an IPO by the end of 2027, there already exists a lower-fuss—albeit riskier—alternative that could enable traders to invest in Pudgy Penguins without all the regulatory requirements: tokenizing the stock. 

Asked if Pudgy Penguins might soon tokenize shares of its stock to trade on an on-chain equities platform such as xStocks, Netz said: “I can’t speak on this, but you’re going down a very smart rabbit hole. 

One thing he can share, however, is that the NFT project will continue to be selective about who it works with as it looks for ways to fuel its growth. 

“There’s a lot of cheap, grimy, dirty capital out there,” Netz said. But, he added: “I have every interest in doing this stuff with the biggest and the best… with the guys [for whom] if it’s not a billion dollars, it doesn’t move the needle for them.”