Business:
The Denver-based email company SendGrid has filed documents for an initial public offering.
After months of speculation, SendGrid made it official and filed documents this week for an initial public offering.
The Denver company, known for handling billions of emails from Nextdoor notifications to Airbnb confirmations, filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. The number of shares, the price range and the IPO date have not yet been determined.
The company expects to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SEND.”
SendGrid joins a rare list of Colorado tech companies that have gone public in recent years. Earlier this month, the parent of Golden-based HomeAdvisor acquired Angie’s List and combined the two into a new company, ANGI Homeservices, which began trading on the Nasdaq. In May, cable provider WideOpenWest in the Denver Tech Center began trading on the NYSE. In 2013, Boulder-based Rally Software went public, though it was later acquired by software firm CA Technologies. Boulder-based telecom Zayo Group went public in 2014.
SendGrid first spoke about going public a year ago, when it raised $33 million from investors, saying the money would keep growth on track for a possible IPO. CEO Sameer Dholakia told The Denver Post ear-
lier this year that he prefers to describe it as “IPO worthiness” because he was building a company to last and not just for a single event. He also mentioned that there is plenty of room to grow in and out of the email space, especially internationally.
In the regulatory filing, SendGrid said that more than 36 percent of its total revenue comes from outside the United States, and between 2014 and 2016, its small international operations grew revenues by $31.5 million, or 84 percent. The company recently opened its first international sales and marketing of- fice in London.
The filing also documented SendGrid’s annual revenues starting in 2014. Revenues grew 37 percent each year during that period, starting at $42.8 million in 2014 and rising to $79.9 million last year. In the first six months of 2017, revenues hit $51.8 million.
Net losses have shrunk since 2014, when the company lost $13 million. SendGrid lost $3.9 million last year, and in the first six months this year, it lost $3.1 million.
The fast-growing email company, which went through the Boulder Techstars accelerator in 2009, has grown its business that handled email transactions between consumers and, for example, Uber, to one with 55,000 customers that send out more than 1.1 billion emails per day.
“In 2017, we will be generating $100 million in revenue. We’re growing at 40 percent year to year and profitable, which is pretty significant for a SaaS (software as a service) company,” SendGrid spokesman David Friedman said last fall. “We’re excited to potentially be one of the first billion-dollar software companies born and bred in the state.”
Last year, SendGrid left Boulder for a Denver headquarters at 1801 California St. As of June 30, the company employed 384 people and has offices in California and London.