IPO priced
0 CommentsYelp prices the deal at $15 a share, above its target, expecting to raise $106.5 million by selling 7.1 million shares.
What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Jeremy Levine, created by Newslines contributors. Become a contributor
Jeremy Seth Levine is a venture capitalist born in 1974. He graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a BS in Computer Science and Economics, and worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Co. and an associate at AEA Investors from 1995 to 1999, when he joined internet company Dash. He joined Bessemer Venture Partners in 2001 and led the company’s investments in Yelp and LinkedIn. He has also served on the boards of Pinterest.com, Wikia, GraceNote, Soap.com, Diapers.com, Onestop, Shopify, and other startups. He is married with three children, and is based in Larchmont, N.Y., and Silicon Valley.
Yelp prices the deal at $15 a share, above its target, expecting to raise $106.5 million by selling 7.1 million shares.
Yelp files a prospectus to raise up to $100 million. It doesn’t say which exchange it wants to list on or how many shares it wants to sell, but preempts investor concerns about its rivalry with Google:
[Google] has promoted its own competing products, including Google’s local products, in its search results. Given the large volume of traffic to our website and the importance of the placement and display of results of a user’s search, similar actions in the future could have a substantial negative effect on our business and results of operations.
The company hires Palmer as chief executive after he leads Gracenote through its acquisition by Sony. Outgoing CEO Gil Penchina:
Craig is a perfect fit for Wikia’s next stage of growth, which will rely on efficient processes that can help us rapidly scale our community, revenue, and profit. Craig’s history of building successful businesses in content, online media, and technology makes him well-equipped to lead Wikia.
Yelp talks to a Senate hearing about Google’s power over search results. Stoppelman:
Google first began taking our content without permission a year ago. Despite public and private protests, Google gave the ultimatum that only a monopolist can give: In order to appear in Web search, you must allow us to use your content to compete against you.
(Written statement here.)
Shares rise as much as 171% intraday on debut at the New York Stock Exchange before closing at $94.25, more than 109 percent above the IPO price. The company is worth nearly $9 billion after the first day of trading. A LinkedIn employee celebrating in the parking lot of the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.:
I got here at 6 a.m. We’ve been celebrating since then. We recognize that there’s potentially a bubble right now.
The underwriters price the deal at $45 a share, near the top of the range, giving a valuation of $4.25 for 7.84 million shares—the biggest U.S. Internet IPO since Google. Bessemer sells into the IPO, and Cowan and Levine exit and leave the board.
Analysts are divided with the bearish view being that the valuation is high and references to things like ‘key metrics’ of website visits and page views are reminiscent of Dotcom hype. The bullish view is that the company is supported by three diversified revenue streams – ads, premium content, and hiring tools sold to recruiters. It is also the only social media stock that is publicly available, justifying a premium on the shares.
Amazon closes the deal. Levine leaves the company, his third major exit for Bessemer.
Amazon announces it is buying the company for $540 million and assuming $45 million debt. Bezos:
This acquisition brings together two companies who are committed to providing great prices and fast delivery to parents
Amazon is reported to offer $540 million cash, $200 million over what Quidsi is valued in its latest round of venture financing. The founders will get multi-year employment contracts.
Quidsi launches Beautybar.com to compete with supermarkets that sell prestige products online. Prices range from $20 for some basic products to an anti-ageing cream that costs $715. Merchandizing director Caroline Childers:
We went back and forth internally about whether to launch Soap.com and BeautyBar.com at same time. The person looking for Pantene shampoo is also looking for Bliss Body Cream. I don’t think the two dilute each other; they compliment each other.
The three sites share backend systems including an in-house call center, shipping, warehousing and an online shopping cart.
Renamed Quidsi, or What if? in Latin, the company expects to bring in $300 million revenue.
The South African media conglomerate buys out Bessemer and the other investors, and Levine leaves the company’s board. Details of the strategic investment aren’t disclosed but it is rumored to be around $20 million-$40 million. Nexus, the latest investor to join funding, says it made ‘multiples’ on its $5 million investment. OLX now owns Mundoanuncio.com, a classifieds site targeting the Hispanic market, and has a stake in Chinese free classifieds site Edeng.cn. Naspers has been targeting the Latin American market, and says it wants to:
acquire/establish a core internet community within a specific country/region and to then expand the operations by adding additional services such as e-commerce, communication, social networking, content and gaming.
Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com, launches Soap.com to leverage the operation’s existing backend logistics and supply more than 25,000 health, beauty, personal care and household products from over 900 brands. This will increase to more than 40,000 products by the end of 2010 and more than 100,000 by end-2011. It says the average offline drugstore has only 10,000 items.
proudly announcing that www.soap.com is now live! watch this vid to learn more: http://bit.ly/bWFrNu Enjoy!
— Soap.com (@soapdotcom) July 15, 2010
Maiffret returns as CTO to the company he started when he was 17, and says he will be in charge of the overall technology vision and day-to-day research.
Quidsi moves to fully automated warehouses on both coasts as it prepares to launch Soap.com. It now has 2.5 million square feet of space. Bahrara:
All the robots are in place.
CEO Gil Penchina says revenues grew four times in 2009 and the company kept costs in check. He doesn’t state the amount of profit, but says it is looking to add a dozen staffers to its roster of 40 people.
Unique visitors in the six months to July increase 76% in the U.S. to 6.5 million, 14.2 million worldwide, and Penchina says the site is making money:
[Ad revenues are] significantly higher than the cost of operations in total
The company adds another $5 million in funding, this time from India-based Nexus Capital.
The retailer more than doubles in size, achieving 147% sales growth as it doubles the number of products it carries and adds product categories including toys, books, clothing, shoes and a Green Baby section to sell environmentally safe products. The company also makes a point of answering phone calls to its call center within 30 seconds and responding to customer service email queries within 20 minutes, which it says creates customer loyalty. Lore:
2008 was a great year but there is very strong price pressure in this category from competitors. We’ll grow in 2009 by continuing to diversify our product mix and delivering what our core customers want.
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