The custom ceramic eggs, with hand-stamped ideas, top, and the wood stationery sets are sold by Caroline Colom Vasquez's store on Etsy.NYT/The New York Times
Etsy Inc., the global online marketplace for vintage and artisanal products, filed for a $100-million (U.S.) initial public offering in the U.S.
That amount is a placeholder used to calculate fees that may change. Etsy didn't specify the shares or price range for the offering in its initial prospectus Wednesday. The company, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes including continued investments to expand the business, the filing shows.
Etsy, founded a decade ago as a niche website where artists could sell their creations, offers everything from crochet chickens to Soviet-era souvenir pens, making revenue through commissions and listing fees charged to sellers. Revenue last year surged 56 per cent to $196-million, the filing shows. Still, the company's losses widened, to $15.2-million for the 12 months through Dec. 31 from $796,000 a year earlier.
The decade-old company was founded by Rob Kalin, a carpenter making handmade wooden computers with nowhere to sell them. He left the company in 2011 and was replaced as chief executive officer by Chad Dickerson, a former Yahoo Inc. executive.
While growth is critical for prospective investors, sellers have said in online forums that an IPO could hurt their businesses. Etsy changed its policies in October, 2013, to allow sellers to outsource manufacturing and fulfillment services. This helped some sellers become six-figure successes, and their businesses' growth may have helped Etsy's.
However, the new protocol upset artisans that focused purely on handmade items because it unleashed a wave of new products – and more competition. Some are concerned that the IPO will encourage the company to create more policies, such as raising listing fees, that could adversely affect them.
"I predict Etsy's environment will change drastically with an IPO – and I don't feel the inevitable changes will be as benign to our community as Etsy [or investors] would have us think," Jessica Rankin, who sells handmade jewellery on the site, said on one of Etsy's forums. "Finding another home for my shop may be the only way I have a hand in preserving it."
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co. are managing the Etsy IPO. The company has applied to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ETSY.