Ex-Jetstar boss' start-up Rokt hits $630m valuation after raising $112m

"A focus has been on preparing for IPO, so with the key talent and getting our processes in line, we will be able to make that call some time next year ... My take on our businesses, we will list some time in the next few years," he said.

He said the decision would be taken with the board, based on factors such as the speed of economic recovery from COVID-19 and being able to show quarterly revenue growth to the market in a non-pandemic scenario.

He also said a decision was yet to be taken about whether the company would list in Australia or the US.

"There's an active debate and there's pros and cons for both. Most of our customers and revenue is derived out of the US, but the Australian market has some advantages in terms of superannuation funds and six month reporting requirements, so we are having that discussion," Mr Buchanan said.

"It's also cheaper to list in Australia, and you can list at a slightly different threshold, there's definitely some economic advantages."

Mr Buchanan said Rokt had ultimately performed well during the pandemic, with a large number of retailers looking to do more business online. He said the time taken to sell new clients on the idea of Rokt had fallen dramatically during lockdown and the rise in online retail and other better performing sectors had more than offset declines in hospitality and events.

Long term he said he believed Rokt would be well placed as companies that had newly embraced online retail would not stop doing it once COVID receded, and struggling client sectors would return.

"In the first few weeks of the pandemic our revenues declined 65 per cent, which was a scary time, and we thought we might be staring down the barrel of even further declines," Mr Buchanan said.

"But in the space of four to six weeks, we started to see our growth in the other sectors and the business really reset. Then over the next few months, we ended up re-clawing all that back, and over the last couple of weeks, we've been back to pre-COVID levels."

TDM partner Tom Cowan, who sits on Rokt's board, said the company had exceeded its expectations since he had come on as an investor, and that he viewed Mr Buchanan as one of the best founders in the global start-up scene.

"The opportunity for Rokt has never been greater, and we would expect the company to continue to rapidly grow into this with the execution that we have come to know from Bruce," Mr Cowan said.

"The company is scaling towards an IPO and will do so when the time is right for the company ... But a Rokt IPO would not be an exit event of any kind for TDM – we have complete flexibility in how we invest, and so would look to be very long term shareholders in the public markets."