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Month: September 2009

Newegg files for IPO

Newegg files for IPO

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According to an SEC filing released today, the internet’s favorite electronic retailer Newegg will be going public.  The offering is being underwritten by JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup. A date and ticker symbol have yet to come, but the IPO will likely happen before the end of the year.

Newegg has been around since 2001, and sales in 2008 are purported to be over $2 billion. Newegg prides itself on speedy delivery and low cost on some of the most popular electronic goods, and has become a go-to establishment for the cheapest prices on the latest consumer electronics with a computing emphasis.

The issuing is expected to bring in $175 million for Newegg which, according to the sec filing, will in part be used to expand their business to Canada and China.

Venture Capitalists to lose $100 Million Investment

Venture Capitalists to lose $100 Million Investment

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The stage is set for a collaboration between T. Rowe Price and Insight Venture Partners to lose $100 million dollars today in an announcement that the team will be investing in Twitter.

In terms of dollars per user, the T. Rowe team and Insight Venture Partners value each user of the Twitter micro-blogging sight at nearly $40 a head, giving Twitter an estimated total value of $1 billion . The only remaining problem for the partners is how to milk that $40/user out of the jaded user base. Some internet entrepreneurs liken monitization of Twitter to “squeezing water from a rock”.

Twitter, the newest overnight internet sensation, is a text message propagation website with minimal revenue and no working business model to speak of. It differentiates itself from other blogging sites in that it only allows 140 characters or less in blog posts, which is a little less than half the number of characters in this paragraph.

Time will tell whether this investment will pay off, but it seems the lessons learned by venture capitalists in the late 90’s has not yet sunk in for the Price-Insight team.