- Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi had a chance to invest in Beyond Meat before its initial public offering, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- But they passed up on the opportunity. "Boy do we regret that," de Rossi said. "We're kicking ourselves."
- Beyond Meat is currently trading up more than 224% since its IPO. Early investors have made millions of dollars by selling some of their shares.
- Watch Beyond Meat trade live on Markets Insider.
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi had a chance to invest early in Beyond Meat, the buzzy plant-based meat alternative company, through PLUS Capital, a firm that helps celebrities invest in startups, The Wall Street Journal's Katie Roof reported Thursday.
But they passed on the opportunity to invest before Beyond Meat's initial public offering in May because they weren't in a position to invest, de Rossi told the Journal.
"Boy do we regret that," de Rossi said. "We're kicking ourselves."
Since its May IPO, Beyond Meat has had a blockbuster performance in the market. At its highest point, it was up more than 800% from its IPO price of $25.
Even though those extraordinary highs didn't hold, Beyond Meat is still trading up more than 220% year to date. For comparison, the S&P 500 is up about 23% year to date.
Quite a few early investors have taken advantage of the performance by selling some of their Beyond Meat shares when they could.
In July, some early investors got an opportunity to cash out when Beyond Meat announced a secondary public offering. That led to a selloff, sending shares down about 17%. At the end of October, the post-initial public offering lockup expiration ended, meaning roughly 48 million shares held by early investors became eligible to trade.
The share price dipped again as early investors rushed to capitalize on the stock's gains. Members of Beyond Meat's C-suite including the chief financial officer quickly sold shares. Some made millions of dollars on the sales.
Beyond Meat is up 224% year to date.
