2007 certainly seems to be the year that technology initial public offerings are coming back into style. A number of startups have nice double-digit millions revenue numbers and are at or near profitability. Last week: Netsuite. Today, Massachusetts based Constant Contact filed to go public.
The draft registration statement is here. CIBC, Thomas Weisel and Cowen & Company are the bankers on the deal. The company is at a nearly $40 million annual run rate (and ramping nicely I hear) and is just barely profitable. This year’s revenues should be closer to $50 million
The company has a relatively simple product that allows small businesses to create and manage email lists and newsletters. But that simple product is absolutely compelling to non-techy small busineses – and around 120,000 of them are Constant Contact customers, paying an average of $35/month. iContact is a competitor.
Have you set much aside for Zuckerberg, Mike?
won’t be long before companies with 0 revenues but a few million users, file multi million dollar valuation ipos
Service really is great for small biz, I’ve have setup many clients with them. Even the most non tech savy has no problem making professional newsletters.
These are great services. I’ve used Constant Contact and iContact (formerly IntelliContact) and iContact has a much much much nicer user interface.
Good for them.
I’m all for the new IPO’s but don’t fuck it up for everyone else.
Jason
-1daysports.com
CampaignMonitor is a competitor as well. Pricing is $5 + $0.01 per recipient. It’s dead easy to use, reliable, and they provide valuable advice on email composition and delivery techniques.
ConstantContact is a great East coast software success story. Kudos to Ms. Goodman and her team.
Small business is where money will be made (like enterprise software was in the 1990s).
$40 million? I should have gotten into this racket… Congrats to this spam-made-easy service on their IPO.
Thanks for the coverage Mike, and congratulations to CC. And Sputnik–Constant Contact is not a spam-made-easy service. It is only allows sending newsletters you request to receive. Both iContact and Constant Contact despise spam and can only succeed as businesses by working to prevent it.
Ryan Allis, iContact
great, so their sheets will be open and we can see how they bleed….icontact is just the first of many, this company will be rapidly uncrowned if there is money to be made.
…but *more* important is this local insider tip (yes, i live less than a couple of miles from their hq) – one of their earliest employees (engineering chief) resigned last year because he felt that they were destined for long term failure…what does that tell you?
michael, if you’d like more info please ping me off this comment thread (name, more notes, etc)
Constant Contact is a great service! Very exciting news… CC allows legit businesses and organizations to send nice looking personalized emails to their clients or members…. definitely not spam! and it makes my life a lot easier
TechCrunch can confirm this, but the above commenter (AJ Mulvey) may be a Constant Contact employee, engaging in a little astroturfing.
See this page for details: http://tinyurl.com/3c3vet
Avoyel.com is a competitor as well. It’s extremely easy to use, reliable, and they provide outstanding support.
Sorry, here’s the correct link:
Avoyel.com
Constant Contact has spammed by box repeatedly in recent days and minutes ago responded to my spam complaint claiming they they don’t tolerate spam. They are habitual liars and spammers, and I intend to block all traffic from anyone who hosts them. I have repeatedly invited them to join the discussion of their continued abuse in usenet “NANAE” but they obviously don’t want to embarrass themselves.