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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

#4

Post by mbesto »

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!

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

#5

Post by mmastrac »

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...

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

#6

Post by ditonal »

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 that I know is in shaky grounds. While I hope they recover and do great, they also suddenly have freelance "journalists" writing positive things about them in the press, and I'm 99% sure it's paid PR via VC connections (especially given that I know for a fact the publication - TheStreet.com - has ties to the NYC VC community). Meanwhile, because it's not a super well known company, there's not a lot of opinions out there one way or the other on it so when you Google its name you just read these few very positive pieces about it. Now, this may be just paranoia, but we as an industry should be vigilant that VCs don't try to run pump-and-dumps on their weaker holdings. It will benefit nobody but bad VCs and will harm the public and the industry's reputation, and due to lockups it's unlikely it will benefit the typical employee with common shares anyway.

I read an article about these mini-IPOs in the WSJ and it's saying "Democrats like it because it empowers the little guy, Republicans like it because it removes regulation." They also tried to spin it as "VCs HATE this! Average investors can take over instead now!" I don't trust Wall Street and I don't trust the SEC's ability to regulate them, so when the rules change I assume that Wall St is getting their way rather than the reverse. If the Republicans, Democrats, and Wall St all love a new piece of regulation, I assume the public's about to get screwed.

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

#7

Post by oisino »

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 what they do next.

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

#8

Post by pbreit »

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.

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

#9

Post by ojbyrne »

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…

Pretty well every business story is "paid PR."

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

#10

Post by AYBABTME »

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…

Shopify is not a shaky company at all. It's a top notch company, top place to work, top product. It's like a recipe of everything done well.

So I don't really understand why you say that.

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