“ChannelAdvisor targets 2013 IPO, sources say,” reads the Reuters news service headline.
Scot Wingo, founder and CEO of the Morrisville-based e-commerce firm, takes the fifth.
“No I cannot comment on this,” Wingo told WRAL Tech Wire in an e-mail.
Southern Capitol Ventures, a ChannelAdvisor backer, also declined comment.
For Wingo not to comment on this report is understandable, given the sensitivity and all the skulduggery involved in an initial public offering.
But for him to stay quiet is unusual.
Wingo is an avid and prolific blogger about e-commerce.
He even got credit for a scoop with a report about a new Amazon Lending program earlier this month.
Talking about the Reuters story is a different matter.
ChannelAdvisor has been a possible IPO candidate for a good while, given its rapid growth. Now, Reuters says, the company ”has hired banks for an initial public offering next year.” The news service cited “three sources familiar with the matter.”
Goldman Sachs and Stifel Nicolaus will lead the IPO effort, according to the report. ChannelAdvisor will be pitched as a software-as-a-service provider. Its list of clients is long and impressive.
Reuters estimates ChannelAdvisor, which is privately held and back by investors such as eBay, produces $50 million a year in revenue.
[CHANNELADVISOR ARCHIVE: Check out a decade of ChannelAdvisor stories as reported in WRAL Tech Wire.]
(Note: Capitol Broadcasting, the parent of WRAL Tech Wire, is an investor in Southern Capitol Ventures.)
