CHARLOTTE – AvidXchange has filed with the SEC to take the company public, and the company could be valued at $4.4 billion.
According to an S-1/A registration statement dated on October 4, the company plans to offer 22,000,000 shares of its common stock for sale to the public through an initial publish offering (IPO) with a target price per share of between $21 and $23.
The fast-growing fintech firm would raise between $462 million and $506 million should the price per share of the company’s common stock fall within that range.
The company, founded in 2000 by Michael Prager, who is the company’s CEO, reported a net loss of about $101 million for 2020 and a revenue of about $186 million, according to reporting that originally appeared in the Charlotte Observer last week.
The company plans to use the ticker symbol AVDX and list the company’s stock for trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
The filing does disclose multiple potential risk factors.
“We have a history of operating losses and we may not achieve or sustain profitability in the future,” the filing reads. According to the filing, the company has reported operating losses each year since its inception. “We participate in highly competitive and fragmented markets, and our industry is rapidly evolving,” the filing reads.
“We may not be able to scale our business and technology quickly enough to meet our growth,” the filing reads.
AvidXchange becomes an even bigger unicorn with new $66M cash haul
The Charlotte Observer reported that the company plans to use the funding generated through an initial public offering to hire additional staff, enhance sales and marketing, and to hold as working capital, though it may also invest the funds into acquiring other companies.
The company included in its filing its financial history, and also noted in the list of potential risk factors that there exist “material weaknesses” in its financial reporting.
“We identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, and if we fail to remediate these material weaknesses or if we otherwise fail to establish and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results could be adversely affected,” AvidXchange noted.
The company AvidXchange Holdings, Inc. “was formed in January 2021 to serve as a holding company for AvidXchange, Inc., which was formed in 2000 as a Delaware corporation, originally named AvidXchange.com, Inc., changing its name in 2003 to AvidXchange, Inc.,” the company’s registration statement reads.
The restructuring of the company occurred on July 9, 2021. According to the filing, “stockholders of AvidXchange, Inc. received identical shares in a 1:1 ratio of AvidXchange Holdings, Inc. in exchange for their shares of AvidXchange, Inc., and AvidXchange, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of AvidXchange Holdings, Inc., which is a holding company, the sole asset of which is the stock of AvidXchange, Inc.”
In total, the company stated on the registration form 25,300,000 shares of common stock.
Charlotte ‘unicorn’ AvidXchange reportedly considering IPO, $7B valuation
The company has received multiple grants from the state of North Carolina, including one in 2014 to create 603 jobs in Charlotte that was worth some $7.5 million if the terms of the deal were met. The Charlotte Observer also reported on a state incentive package worth nearly $20 million and a local incentive package worth about $3.3 million for the company to create some 1,200 jobs in the region in 2018. That investment from AvidXchange also included a $41 million investment in the company’s headquarters, as the company added to its campus, the Observer reported.
It’s considered a unicorn, the term given to a privately held company with a valuation of more than $1 billion. AvidXchange surpassed the $2 billion valuation in early 2020, according to the Observer. The company valuation would have likely increased, WRAL TechWire reported, following a $66 million fundraise in September 2020.
A Reuters report from earlier this week states that the company could be valued at $4.4 billion following the initial public offering.
Goldman Sachs & Co, J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, and Barclays are among the underwriters for the initial public offering, the registration statement noted.
