Shopify to raise $100M in Toronto, New York IPO • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by ditonal » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:25 AM UTC

soldergenie wrote: post #27

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…

It is actually quite common in Canada for small companies to IPO with total market caps of just tens of millions of dollars. Canada doesn't have nearly as many private company investors as the USA, so companies (especially resource based companies) just go public when they are small in order to raise money. All these small company IPOs are on a separate exchange (the TSX Venture exchange), and if the company gets big…

But in fact they are IPOing on the NYSE using the new regulation that just changed:

http://ww2.cfo.com/regulation/2015/03/sec-approves-new-rules...

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1594805/000119312515...

"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:"

And yes the advantage is that you open up emerging companies to retail investors. The problem is the tech industry's history with small companies and retail investors is not so great, I would say the danger outweights the benefits.

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

#32

Post by ditonal » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:28 AM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #29

ditonal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not talking about Shopify specifically, the reason it's relevant is because they are IPOing using a new set of rules based on the JOBS act. This IPO would not have been possible even two months ago. Read the filing and read more about the JOBS act and "IPO-lites." Even if Shopify is not a bad investment, the point stands that smaller companies under less scrutiny being sold to the public opens up big avenues for…

Could you provide a pointer to the section of their filing which identifies the new rules?

Just search for JOBS in the filing itself, I've quoted it a few times in other comments.

Here's a link talking about the regulatory change:

http://ww2.cfo.com/regulation/2015/03/sec-approves-new-rules...

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

#33

Post by callmeed » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:31 AM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #16

Does this make Shopify the largest Ruby IPO to date?

I guess it depends on how much Ruby one needs to qualify.

But I think Zendesk ended up with a higher valuation on their IPO opening day. Their market cap is now $1.8B.

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

#34

Post by adammcnamara » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:33 AM UTC

Congrats to the Shopify team.

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

#35

Post by oimaz » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:34 AM UTC

As a developer, does it make sense to build shopify apps? Curious to hear about shopify apps and its ecosystem

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

#36

Post by theklub » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:40 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #4

bhouston wrote: post #2

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

Thanks! Interesting (or not interesting) to see yet again, that the biggest operating expense is marketing (and not engineering): FY2014 Sales and Marketing - 45,929 RD - 25,915 Admin - 11,566 And unsurprising they're at a net loss. Grow baby grow!

I've seen their ads follow me all over the internet, if you go and start something on their website they wont give up easy.

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

#37

Post by myth_drannon » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:48 AM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #16

Does this make Shopify the largest Ruby IPO to date?

I don't know about an IPO but I was talking to a Shopify employee at Pycon and he said it's the largest Rails app in the world.

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

#38

Post by Tiktaalik » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:49 AM UTC

Who is their main competition?

In this the online store and retail POS space I'm aware there are other operators, but Shopify is the only one I can name.

Square I guess in the POS space?

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

#39

Post by bhouston » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:56 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #38

Who is their main competition? In this the online store and retail POS space I'm aware there are other operators, but Shopify is the only one I can name. Square I guess in the POS space?

Some competitors:

Magento / Magento Go oscommerce woocommerce etsy squarespace prestashop opencart Wordpress has shopping chart as well.

There are a ton of existing POS providers for stores, more than one can name.

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

#40

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:58 AM UTC

aikah wrote: post #26

freejack wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I'm not making excuses for them Yes you are. If the OP story is true, you just don't yell at your customer. It doesn't make me want to try Shopify if they really use these kind of practices. Only shady pornsites do that stuff.

[deleted]