Israeli online freelancer platform Fiverr will begin trading today on Wall Street at a company value of $650 million. The company announced that its Initial Public Offering (IPO) is being held at $21 per share on the NYSE and the share will trade under the FVRR ticker, slightly higher than the $18-20 per share it spoke of last week (at a value of $560-620 million), probably after encouraging indications about investor sentiment. In the past, there were reports that the IPO would be held at a company value of over $800 million, although there was never any official confirmation from Fiverr about this.
Fiverr will issue 5.3 million shares and raise $110 million. The underwriters have an option to issue 750,000 additional shares, if the IPO is successful. After the IPO, there will be 31 million shares with the public holding 17% of the company (before the underwriters exercise their options). Prior to today's IPO, Fiverr had raised $170 million in various financing rounds.
Fiverr was founded in 2014 by CEO Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger (who has since left to set up digital insurance startup Lemonade). Until recently Wininger still sat on Fiverr's board of directors and he is in New York today for the IPO. Kaufman is expected to become Fiverr's chairman after the IPO, subject to shareholders' agreement.
Last week, Fiverr published the list of its current shareholders. The founders Kaufman and Wininger hold 7.7% and 5.7% ($50 and $37 million) respectively. Bessemer Venture Partners holds 12.4% ($80 million) and Accel holds 10% ($65 million), Square Peg 9.1% ($61 million), and Qumra 5.8% ($38 million). Angel investor Jonathan Kolber holds 13.2% ($86 million) and Guy Gimzo 4.3% ($28 million).
Fiverr has developed an online platform in which freelancers offer services in more than 200 categories in the gig economy, among them graphic design, marketing and communications, writing, translation, copywriting, and software development. No single category contributes more than 15% of Fiverr's revenue. At first, all services via Fiverr were offered for $5. Later, freelancers were enabled to offer services at higher prices. Fiverr receives a fee for each deal, from both the service provider and service buyers.
According to the prospectus, Fiverr's revenue is growing at a rate of more than 40% annually, and revenue in the first quarter of 2019 was $24 million, up 42% from the corresponding quarter of 2018. Revenue in 2018 was $75.5 million, up 45% from 2017.
The company is not yet profitable and lost $36 million in 2018. In the first quarter of 2019, Fiverr lost $5.4 million.
Fiverr is being represented by Advs. Shachar Hadar, Itay Frishman, Miri Shalit and Elad Ziv from Meitar Liquornik Geva Leshem Tal law firm.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 13, 2019
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