Shopify To Sell Shares To Fund Growth

Shopify Inc. is taking advantage of record prices to sell shares in order to maintain its rapid growth.

Bloomberg Technology reports that the eCommerce company will sell 5.5 million shares from its treasury, adding about 7 percent to the number in circulation. Based on current prices, it would raise about $490 million.

Ottawa-based Shopify is the best-performing Canadian company, worth more than C$1 billion, and its shares have more than doubled since the beginning of the year. In fact, they closed at an all-time high on Tuesday. Yet while it keeps surpassing expectations for growth in users and revenue, those achievements come at a price — and the company has said it won’t make a profit until the end of this year.

Money from the sale will be used to boost network infrastructure, strengthen marketing and finance potential future acquisitions.

“We’re growing quite rapidly,” Shopify’s Head of Investor Relations, Katie Keita, said. “This is a way to ensure we will be able to strengthen our balance sheet to fund various growth initiatives.”

Shopify provides websites and payment services to merchants who want to sell online. Its major competitors are privately-held and include Austin-based BigCommerce Inc. and California-based Magento Inc.

This deal follows a $329.9 million offering Shopify completed in August 2016. The company hired Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and CIBC Capital Markets to lead the new sale.