Israeli company Fiverr, which has developed an online platform for freelancers, is proceeding with giant steps towards a Wall Street IPO. The company has filed a public prospectus, and will start a roadshow in the coming weeks. The prospectus shows annual growth rates of over 40%. Revenue totaled $75.5 million in 2018, representing growth of 45% over 2017. In the first quarter of 2019, revenue totaled $24 million, 42% more than in the first quarter of 2018.
The company is not currently profitable. Its loss in 2018 was $36 million, almost double the loss for 2017. In the first quarter of 2019, the company lost $8 million, about half the loss in the corresponding quarter.
Fiverr was founded in 2010 by its CEO Micha Kaufman with Shai Wininger. Wininger left in 2014 in order to found virtual insurance company Lemonade. The company has offices in Tel Aviv, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Freelancers offer services in more than 100 categories on Fiverr's platform, among them graphic design, marketing and communications, writing, translation, copywriting, and software development. At first, all services via Fiverr were offered for $5. Later, freelancers were enabled to offer services at higher prices.
Since it saw founded, Fiverr has raised $111 million. Its investors include the Bessemer Venture Partners, Qumra Capital, Accel, Square Peg Capital venture capital firms.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. will act as lead joint book-running managers for the proposed offering. BofA Merrill Lynch and UBS Securities LLC will also act as book-running. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., JMP Securities LLC and Needham & Company, LLC will act as co-managers.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 16, 2019
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