E-commerce site CafePress is looking to raise as much as $80 million in an initial public offering, the company indicated on Friday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
CafePress enables users to customize their own designs for t-shirts, stickers, posters and a myriad of different accessories. In addition, the company helps designers, artists and branded content licensors sell their products through its online shops. CafePress also helps product development companies work through the manufacturing process, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The print-on-demand retailer was founded in 1999 and has been a popular online destination for over a decade, although revenue declined significantly in 2009 following the economic downturn. The company has since recovered to its previous level of success.
The San Mateo, California-based company said that it will use the proceeds from the IPO for capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes. CafePress will be looking to piggyback on Wall Street's thriving interest in Internet firms. Business networking site LinkedIn (News - Alert) saw its shares more than double on its first day of trading last month.
CafePress's net loss increased from $40,000 to $831,000 in the quarter ending on March 31, even though its sales increased 46 percent to $32 million during the same period. The inequity was due to gross margin declines and increases in operating costs, says the Journal.
The site saw its sales increase 24 percent to $127.9 million during 2010. CafePress rebounded well from a frustrating 2009 where it experienced a drop in revenue caused by discretionary spending drops associated with the stagnant economy, according to Bloomberg.
The IPO will be underwritten by JP Morgan (News 
- Alert), Jefferies and Cowen & Co. Chief investors in CafePress include co-founders Fred Durham and Maheesh Jain and venture-capital firm Sequoia. The company has yet to reveal the number of shares that it will sell, their expected asking price or the exchange on which they will debut.
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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
