ReachLocal, which offers online marketing and reporting solutions to help small and medium-sized businesses acquire and retain customers, filed on Tuesday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. The online advertising company combines advanced technology and a digitally sophisticated sales force to provide SMBs with a simple and cost-effective marketing strategy. The Woodland Hills, CA-based company was founded in 2003 and booked $186 million in sales over the last 12 months. J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch are the lead underwriters on the deal. Pricing terms for the IPO as well as its expected listing exchange and ticker symbol were not disclosed.
ReachLocal represents the 18th venture-backed company to file for an IPO in the last two months (includes two IPOs that filed in November and priced in December). That compares with just 8 venture-backed filings in the first 10 months of 2009, setting the the stage for a sizeable uptick in IPO activity from the venture capital community in 2010. The past 24 months represented the lowest period in IPO activity among venture-backed companies (9.5 IPOs on average per year) in over a decade. In the five years leading up to the financial crises, from 2003 to 2007, the venture capital industry produced on average 60 IPOs per year.
ReachLocal's IPO filing follows a trio of VC-backed filings in the prior week, which included solar panel manufacturer Solyndra (SOLY), enterprise wireless LAN vendor Meru Networks (MERU) and cancer drug developer AVEO Pharmaceuticals (AVEO).
