It has been a slow year for tech IPOs, but cloud software maker Coupa has publicly filed. This is generally an indication that the company will debut on the stock market in a matter of weeks.
The unicorn, whose largest shareholders include Battery Ventures and BlueRun Ventures, plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker, “COUP.” The company plans to raise roughly $75 million, but this number is subject to change.
Coupa competes with Oracle and SAP to provide “spend management” software, which means they help companies keep tabs on everyday expenditures. They claim they’ve saved their customers $8 billion.
Founded a decade ago, the San Mateo-company is still not profitable. For the six months ending in July of this year, Coupa lost $24.3 million, which is compared to $25.1 million in the same period last year. Revenue grew from $31.6 million to $53.2 million in the same timeframe.
Coupa has been rumored to IPO for some time now. While it has been the least active year for tech IPOs since the financial crisis, the few that have gone through have done fairly well. Twilio has seen its shares nearly quadruple in the past three months.
Part of the reason we saw so few tech IPOs this year was that many companies became afraid to go public after seeing industry peers struggle last year. Half the companies that listed saw their share prices decline.
Yet Coupa is amongst a small group of tech companies that are expected to IPO this fall. Many are being advised not to go public too close to the U.S. presidential election, in case an unexpected outcome (Trump) wreaks havoc on the markets.