Roku is finally going public with its business and, according to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), hopes to raise up to $219 million in the process.The filing itself was made on September 18. As to what Roku plans to use the $219 million for, the company has said it will be allocated for general purposes, research and development, and marketing. Leading the public offering are Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley and, once the SEC approves the public offering, Roku will be listed as ROKU on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
As to the numbers, once the filing goes through, there will be 15.7 million shares up for grabs and shares are being sold at a price ranging between $12 and $14 per share. No fewer than 6 million of those shares are being sold by the single largest current Roku shareholder, Menlo Ventures, although that shareholder will retain 30 percent of the voting shares after the public offering is finalized. Meanwhile, Roku itself will be selling 9 million shares and the remaining shares will be from current stockholders in the company. This move from Roku makes a lot of sense with consideration for the company’s financials. Although the company was among the first to recognize the value of bringing streaming media to televisions, it has predominantly failed to be profitable over the time it has existed.
The company has not necessarily taken its position lying down and its shortcomings have remained despite Roku maintaining relatively steady growth and holding onto a sizeable portion of the market – including an overall increase in the average revenue generated per customer of around 21 percent year-over-year in Q2 2017. It has also undertaken new partnerships, which saw Roku’s hardware being offered to customers as promotional items, as well as new income from advertising and from user’s subscribing to new services through the company’s hardware. Beyond that, there has also been a decent stream of new devices, including televisions, which have shipped with Roku built right in. That has, at very least, helped to fend off some of the company’s stronger competitors in the space – such as Google and Amazon. Going public should generate enough income to give the company a way to fight back against that competition. In the meantime, anybody interested in checking out the filing for themselves can head over to the source link below.