The bulls are running on Wall Street these days with big numbers of IPOs and markets at record highs. Now, ChannelAdvisor hopes to cash in.

The Morrisville-based provider of ecommerce services has formally priced its Initial Public Offering, seeking some $80 million if it hits the top of the range.

In an SEC filing updated Thursday, ChannelAdvisor says it plans to sell 5.75 million shares at a price between $12 and $14.

“All of the 5,750,000 shares of common stock are being sold by us,” the company said in the filing.

If the IPO is successful, ChannelAdvisor would trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ECOM.”

Underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 862,500 shares.

The filing also noted that on Thursday it executed a reverse 1-for-16 stock split. 

ChannelAdvisor stands to join several Triangle firms in pulling off IPOs this year, including Quintiles with the Triangle’s largest ever on Thursday. Life science firms LipoScience and Chimerix also have gone public. At least two others have filed IPO plans.

Last month, ChannelAdvisor set a target of $86 million then updated its SEC filing in which that number was removed.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., Stifel, Pacific Crest Securities, BMO Capital Markets, Needham & Company and Raymond James are handling the offering.

The filing spells out how ChannelAdvisor plans to grow the business post-IPO with a strategy of more hiring in sales, global expansion and “opportunistically pursuing strategic acquisitions.

Highlights:

  • “Expanding our sales force to acquire new customers. We intend to increase our sales force in order to reach and acquire new customers in existing and new geographies. By increasing investment in our sales and marketing capabilities, we believe that we will be able to further expand our brand among new potential customers, grow our revenue and achieve greater economies of scale.
  • “Broadening and deepening existing customer relationships. We intend to expand our sales, marketing and services efforts to help our customers increase their overall GMV processed through our platform by taking full advantage of the functionality of our suite of solutions. As our customer service team works with our customers to optimize usage of their existing modules, our customers’ online businesses often improve, and customers look to expand into additional modules within our suite of solutions.
  • “Increasing our global market presence. We intend to continue our international expansion to attract new international customers and help our existing multinational customers grow their online sales. We plan to expand our existing presence in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region and to establish new operations in Latin America.
  • “Expanding the number of channels supported by our platform. We intend to continue to integrate our solutions with additional channels both within the United States and abroad, such as MercadoLibre in Latin America and Alibaba in Asia. We believe that by selectively adding more channels, we will grow both our customer base and the potential GMV that customers are able to process through our platform.
  • “Maintaining innovation leadership. We intend to continue to develop and introduce new features and improved functionality to our platform. Key initiatives include developing increased workflow automation, enhanced data analytics and expanded foreign language support.
  • “Opportunistically pursuing strategic acquisitions. We may pursue acquisitions of complementary businesses and technologies that are consistent with our overall growth strategy. We believe that a selective acquisition strategy could enable us to enhance our product capabilities, gain new customers and accelerate our expansion into new markets.”

However, the prospectus also notes that ChannelAdvisor continues to lose money even as revenues climbed to more than $53 million in 2012.

“We have incurred significant net losses since inception, and we expect our operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future, which may make it more difficult for us to achieve profitability,” the filing says.

“We incurred net losses of $3.9 million, $4.9 million and $2.7 million in 2011, 2012 and the three months ended March 31, 2013, respectively, and we had an accumulated deficit of $82.2 million as of March 31, 2013. We anticipate that our operating expenses will increase substantially in the foreseeable future as we invest in increased sales and marketing and research and development efforts. As a result, we can provide no assurance as to whether or when we will achieve profitability. In addition, as a public company, we will incur significant accounting, legal and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. To achieve profitability, we will need to either increase our revenue sufficiently to offset these higher expenses or significantly reduce our expense levels. Our recent revenue growth may not be sustainable, and if we are forced to reduce our expenses, our growth strategy could be compromised. If we are not able to achieve and maintain profitability, the value of our company and our common stock could decline significantly.”

ChannelAdvisor has numerous investors, including Raleigh-based Southern Capitol Ventures and eBay.

(Note: Capitol Broadcasting, the corporate parent of WRALTechWire, is an investor in Southern Capitol.)