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Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

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Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#11

Post by hentrep »

mmastrac wrote: post #5
bhouston wrote: post #2

The F-1 filing with the SEC is here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1594805/000119312515...

Interesting: OMERS Ventures is one of the bigger shareholders in Shopify, to the tune of 6%. They are run as part of massive pension fund in Canada. And the Canadian Gov't is also part of this round through a few levels of indirection: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canadian-tech-sector-poised-fo...

I know nothing about the investment world, but find this government-driven investment interesting. Last week the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, in participation with Permira, agreed to take Informatica private [0]. Two large tech investments by Canadian pension funds, and likely many more to which I'm unaware. Is this a proactive move to mitigate future pension crises [1], or just the way most governments operate? I suppose I'm not accustomed to thinking of governments investing in this manner.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/business/dealbook/informat...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensions_crisis

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#13

Post by djloche »

ditonal wrote: post #6

I'm not a financial expert so I'm really not sure, but I'm extremely distrustful of this JOBS Act and "IPO-Lites." Not Shopify specifically, but it's going to open the door to a lot of smaller companies that have a lot less scrutiny on them to IPO and I worry that it will allow VCs to dump their weaker companies on the public, and turn a potential private equity bubble into something bigger. I worked for a startup th…

I think this comment was made on the wrong window. edit: to clarify: there was a thread about crowdfunding in colorado relatively near to this thread.

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#14

Post by anotherview »

oisino wrote: post #7

Not the sexiest stock but as someone who has built their company off Shopify I cant say I have worked with a better product/ company in my life. The way they handle third party developers, designers, and stores is exceptional. They really get what it takes to build a platform. I have no doubt thats Tobi vision of building the platform for all commerce will come true. As a developer building off Shopify excited to see…

I had a different experience. I played with Shopify, and canceled my account.

They kept charging me for years. I eventually noticed, and asked for a refund on the completely empty, completely unused account which was being charged to an expired and canceled card (something I didn't even know was possible until this incident).

Support said no, and offered a discount if I wanted to use Shopify in the future. I said I'd have to resort to a chargeback and I'd let my credit card company see if they agreed with my interpretation of the situation or not. The head of support literally yelled at me the moment I used the word chargeback, revoked his previous offer, and said they had no need to return my money, even though they hadn't earned it.

I wound up in touch with their VP Revenue who agreed that he didn't want to take any money they hadn't earned. But instead of refunding my money, he just dropped contact with me and never responded again.

If they were to respond to this publicly, they'd say I was angry with them. And that's true. I became angry after their head of support yelled at me. I still can't believe that happened, it was the worst customer service experience of my life. My blood pressure goes up a little just remembering how I was treated.

So basically, I'm glad you're happy with them, but they stole a couple hundred bucks from me and lied about their intention to give it back. My experience makes me believe that anybody who had good experiences is, almost certainly, just lucky. That or I'm in the .001% of supremely bad luck.

If I'm truly in the .001%, their vp revenue can circle back and give me the money he promised (I'd be easy to identify on their side, since if they never yell at customers, and never lie to customers, then it should be super-easy to remember a time that they yelled at and then lied to a customer).

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#15

Post by throwaway344 »

hentrep wrote: post #11
mmastrac wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting: OMERS Ventures is one of the bigger shareholders in Shopify, to the tune of 6%. They are run as part of massive pension fund in Canada. And the Canadian Gov't is also part of this round through a few levels of indirection: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canadian-tech-sector-poised-fo...

I know nothing about the investment world, but find this government-driven investment interesting. Last week the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, in participation with Permira, agreed to take Informatica private [0]. Two large tech investments by Canadian pension funds, and likely many more to which I'm unaware. Is this a proactive move to mitigate future pension crises [1], or just the way most governments op…

This particular fund might be acting a bit more aggressively than some others, but big pension funds are huge investors. Calpers (the California state pension fund) has over $300 billion in assets, and often acts to try to improve the performance of the companies that they own.

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#17

Post by freejack »

anotherview wrote: post #14
oisino wrote: post #7

Not the sexiest stock but as someone who has built their company off Shopify I cant say I have worked with a better product/ company in my life. The way they handle third party developers, designers, and stores is exceptional. They really get what it takes to build a platform. I have no doubt thats Tobi vision of building the platform for all commerce will come true. As a developer building off Shopify excited to see…

I had a different experience. I played with Shopify, and canceled my account. They kept charging me for years. I eventually noticed, and asked for a refund on the completely empty, completely unused account which was being charged to an expired and canceled card (something I didn't even know was possible until this incident). Support said no, and offered a discount if I wanted to use Shopify in the future. I said I'd…

I'm aware that they are going through an overhaul of their customer service systems, process and probably the people. Its tough to grow as fast as they are, especially in this area. It is exceptionally hard to find great people, maintain culture and values while still providing great support. I'm not making excuses for them, except to say that I am certain they are aware of the issues they have had had in this area and are working on getting better.

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#18

Post by kepano »

I've been a Shopify customer for about 5 years. What impresses me most is how much they've ramped up product development in the past 18 months. They're building new features at an aggressive pace and continuing to maintain a high degree of polish and ease of use.

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#19

Post by [deleted] »

freejack wrote: post #17
anotherview wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a different experience. I played with Shopify, and canceled my account. They kept charging me for years. I eventually noticed, and asked for a refund on the completely empty, completely unused account which was being charged to an expired and canceled card (something I didn't even know was possible until this incident). Support said no, and offered a discount if I wanted to use Shopify in the future. I said I'd…

I'm aware that they are going through an overhaul of their customer service systems, process and probably the people. Its tough to grow as fast as they are, especially in this area. It is exceptionally hard to find great people, maintain culture and values while still providing great support. I'm not making excuses for them, except to say that I am certain they are aware of the issues they have had had in this area a…

[deleted]

Re: Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO

#20

Post by ditonal »

pbreit wrote: post #8
ditonal wrote: post #6

I'm not a financial expert so I'm really not sure, but I'm extremely distrustful of this JOBS Act and "IPO-Lites." Not Shopify specifically, but it's going to open the door to a lot of smaller companies that have a lot less scrutiny on them to IPO and I worry that it will allow VCs to dump their weaker companies on the public, and turn a potential private equity bubble into something bigger. I worked for a startup th…

Except that its a Canadian company, its a regular IPO. $100m in software revs reasonably supports a $1b valuation. The company has been working hard for nearly 10 years with relatively limited VC involvement. I don't really understand your post in this context.

First of all, limited VC involvement? They raised $122 million from VCs:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/shopify

These investors include VC firms like First Mark Capital, which are NYC based - and oh yeah, the exact same VC firm that was the biggest investor in the startup I worked at that I said is in freefall but now getting positive financial press. It's not about whether the VCs are running operations, it's about whether the VCs are worried they won't get their money back without an IPO, which seems like a genuine concern for an operation that's losing money.

As to your second point of confusion, your pointing out its a Canadian company as if what I'm saying doesn't apply:

"We qualify as an “emerging growth company” pursuant to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act. An emerging growth company may take advantage of specified exemptions from various requirements that are otherwise applicable generally to public companies in the United States. These provisions include:"

They are IPOing on the NYSE so they are still regulated by the SEC, and if you actually read the filing you will note that they are using the new JOBS act in order to IPO. What I'm saying is not unrelated to anything, Shopify is one of the first companies to take advantage of these new changes in regulation. Maybe Shopify specifically isn't a shaky company, but I do think the doors have been opened for shaky companies without much scrutiny to be sold to a public that has been misled by PR.

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