AAA Zoom comes face to face with $100m IPO

Zoom comes face to face with $100m IPO

Zoom, the US-based video conferencing technology provider backed by mobile semiconductor producer Qualcomm, has filed for a $100m initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

Founded in 2011, Zoom has created a cloud software platform that facilitates face-to-face communication between people through electronic devices. It more than doubled its revenue to $330m in 2018 while making a $7.6m profit.

The offering will follow $160m in equity funding, including an early 2017 series D round featuring Qualcomm’s corporate venturing unit, Qualcomm Ventures, that the IPO filing indicated was $115m in size.

The series D valued Zoom at $1bn and was led by a $100m investment from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital with backing from Emergence Capital and AME Cloud Ventures.

Emergence Capital had led the company’s $30m series C round in 2015, investing alongside Horizons Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures head Jerry Yang and Patrick Soon-Shiong, the latter three of which had provided $6.5m of series B funding for Zoom two years earlier.

Qualcomm Ventures first invested in Zoom as part of a $6m series A round earlier in 2013 that included Jerry Yang, Subrah Iyar, Dan Scheinman and Bill Tai.

Zoom’s largest shareholder is Emergence Capital, with a 12.5% stake, followed by Sequoia (11.4%); Digital Mobile Venture, a vehicle for former board member Daniel Chen (9.8%); and Bucantini Enterprises, which represents Horizons Ventures owner Li Ka-shing (6.1%).

Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Securities, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, RBC Capital Markets, Wells Fargo Securities, JMP Securities, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Piper Jaffray, Stifel Nicolaus and William Blair are the underwriters for the IPO.

By Robert Lavine

Robert Lavine is special features editor for Global Venturing.

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