CafePress files for IPO, looks to raise up to $80M

June 10, 2011

The tech industry’s initial public offering wave is showing no signs of slowing.

CafePress filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company is looking to raise up to $80 million in an IPO to be underwritten by J.P. Morgan, Cowen and Company, and Jefferies, according to the filing.

CafePress was founded in 1999 and sells user-customized products such as clothing, accessories, posters, stickers, and housewares through its flagship website CafePress.com. The company also owns a portfolio of other sites, such as CanvasOnDemand, which turns photographs into canvas artwork, and Imagekind.com, which sells artwork from independent artists.

CafePress is profitable and apparently growing. According to the filing, the company made $2.7 million in net income on $128 million in revenues in 2010. In the first three months of 2011, CafePress made $32 million in revenues, about 45 percent more than the $22 million it made in the first quarter of 2010. Last year, the company posted adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization (EBITDA) of $14.5 million.

But while the company’s financials are certainly solid, one could argue they’re not exactly spectacular. CafePress’ average order size has hovered around $47 for the past three years. The company’s top-line annual revenues have see-sawed recently, from $120 million in 2008, down to $103 million in 2009, and back up to $128 million in 2010. In the filing, CafePress blamed the 2009 dip on “macro-economic conditions in our primary markets that reduced discretionary spending by our customers coupled with the absence of election year sales.”

CafePress is just the latest in a recent series of Internet companies making moves toward the public markets. In the past month, LinkedIn, Yandex and Fusion-io have gone public, Groupon filed an S-1, and Kayak and Pandora have issued optimistic S-1 updates. Whether the activity represents another tech bubble or just a healthy and growing economy, it’s certainly shaping up to be a very busy summer for Silicon Valley.

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