Etsy, the US-based e-commerce company specialising in vintage and homemade products that counts media company Hubert Burda among its shareholders, filed for a $100m initial on Nasdaq public offering yesterday.
Founded in 2005, Etsy provides an online platform enabling users to buy and sell clothes and other homemade goods from a network of sellers and home producers, though in a bid to boost revenues it has since relaxed rules that barred mass manufacturing techniques.
Reports in January suggested Etsy would seek up to $300m from an IPO that valued it at $2bn, so the $100m target should be treated as preliminary.
Etsy has raised more than $91m in venture capital altogether. Hubert Burda participated in a $27m series D round in 2008, as well as a $20m series E round and a $40m round raised in 2012, but is not one of Etsy’s major shareholders.
Venture capital firm Accel Partners is the company’s largest shareholder, with a 27% stake, while other notable investors include Union Square Ventures (a 15.2% stake), Index Ventures (12.8%) and Tiger Global Management (7.3%).
The filing states that Etsy recorded a $15.2m loss in 2014, down from a $740,000 loss in 2013, from revenues of $195.6m, which rose 56% over the same period. Operating expenses also increased sharply from $76.5m to $128m, and the filing warned that they are eexpected to rise substantially in future as the site looks to expand.
The company’s only stated ambitions for the proceeds are to transfer $300,000 to Etsy.org, a non-profit it formed in January to educate women and other under-represented entrepreneurial demographics in order to help them launch their own businesses.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Company are serving as underwriters for the offering.