VOD streaming company Vonetize's IPO may be the first offering on the TASE in 2016. The company's service is called Smart VOD. Sources inform "Globes" that the company is preparing for an IPO, with the aim of going ahead with it during the coming month (assuming that stock exchanges around the world calm down, and there is no market crash). Company management and underwriter Clal Finance Underwriting are checking various data with the Israel Securities Authority and preparing a presentation for investors in order to raise NIS 30-40 million at a company value of up to NIS 250 million, before money, according to the company's third quarter reports.
Vonetize was founded in 2008 with $200,000 from angel investors. It raised $6 million more in 2014 in a number of private placements, with a little help from friends and family. Until recently, like more than a few other startups, Vonetize was having difficulty raising the money it needed and the overseas market power required to progress from startup to a company with global deployment. It appears, however, that the company has made its quantum leap, with a relatively significant sales volume.
Sources inform "Globes" that Vonetize's 2015 sales totaled $20 million, and sales are projected to rise in 2016, after the company signed marketing agreements in Latin America, Africa, and other emerging markets. The company's product, which is somewhat reminiscent of Netflix, includes content from major US film studios, such as Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, and Miramax, and is classified as a premium streaming service (meaning that its customers pay for it). As usual now, it is also available through smartphones and smart television.
"We want to make a giant company"
In a "Financial Times" interview two weeks ago, Vonetize CEO Noam Josephides said that in any case, the offering will be only a "step on the way" to what he describes as the company's first milestone. "We want to build a huge company," he declared in the interview, "That is clear to us."
If Vonetize is not acquired on the way, the potential for sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars and a company value in the billions exists, since the company's field of business is growing rapidly throughout the world. Netflix, the leader in the sector, has a current market cap of $43 billion, after the company share soared 24% in the past six weeks (after zooming over 1,000% in the three preceding years).
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 26, 2016
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2016