Customer Reviews And Social Commerce Platform Bazaarvoice Files For $86M IPO

Another day, another technology company files for an IPO. After Jive and Angie’s List, customer reviews company Bazaarvoice has filed its S-1 with the SEC today. The company aims to raise as much as $86.25 million in its offering.

The Austin, TX- based Bazaarvoice, provides a SaaS that powers customer reviews platforms and other social commerce features on brand web sites like Best Buy, Blue Shield of California, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, P&G, Panasonic, and QVC. The company serves as a online reviews engine of sorts, aggregating customer reviews from the web, Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms. The company also syndicates retailer’s product reviews to shopping comparison engines. To date, Bazaarvoice has raised $20 million in funding from Battery Ventures, First Round Capital and others.

In the filing, the company says that as of April, it served 587 active clients, including 24 of the top 100 of the Fortune 500. In April 2011, the company served over 7.9 billion impressions, or ‘instances of online word of mouth delivered to end users’ web browsers,’ and has served over 200 billion total impressions since the company’s start in 2005.

In fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011, Bazaarvoice generated revenue of $22.5 million, $38.6 million and $64.5 million, respectively. In fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011, the company generated 15.8%, 25.2% and 24.9% of our revenue, respectively, from outside of the United States.

Unfortunately, the company is not yet profitable, and has been posting net losses for the past few years. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, the company posted net losses of $5 million, $8 million and $20 million, respectively. And the company warns that it has accumulated a deficit of $40.8 million and may continue to incur losses for the ‘foreseeable future.’

One of the main expenses for Bazaarvoice are sales and marketing efforts; in its fiscal year 2011, the company poured $35 million into sales and marketing. The company doesn’t seem optimistic that profitability is even in its future. From the filing We cannot be certain that we will be able to attain or increase profitability on a client-by-client basis or on a quarterly or annual basis.

Competitors Bazaarvoice include PowerReviews and Revieworld.