Wayfair Inc. is gunning for $350 million in its upcoming IPO. Wayfair’s primary business is as an e-retailer for home furnishings, though it also operates several other e-commerce sites, including the membership-based Joss & Main. The company began its IPO process with a confidential filing earlier this year, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Wayfair was able to make a secret filing under the JOBS Act, which allows companies with revenue under $1 billion to file confidentially.
The Boston company’s IPO filing was made public Friday (August 15), along with data about its total revenue and expense picture.
On the upside heading into a stock offering, Wayfairs revenues are up 50 percent to $574.1 million from $383.2 million in 2013. Unfortunately, that revenue is increasingly being consumed by rising expenses.
Operating expenses increased to $185.1 million in 2014, up from $102.8 million a year earlier. Overall, Wayfair posted a net loss of $51.4 million for the first half of the year, when the loss during the same period in 2013 was only $8.3 million.
Further complicating Wayfair’s road to IPO is the looming shadow of Chinese e-retail giant and defacto competitor Alibaba. The Chinese company’s IPO is set to launch after Labor Day and has effectively stolen some of Wayfair’s thunder.
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The filing didn’t disclose how many shares Wayfair hopes to sell, or at what price.
CEO and CTO Nirah Shah and Tevene Conine co-founded the company and owns 57.8 percent of the shares outstanding pre-IPO.
The offering will be led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Group Inc. and Allen & Co.
