Ask YC: IPO requirements?

1 point·jyu··6 comments

I might be able to post more info. The company is 10 years old, VC backed, cashflow positive, growing revenues the past 4 years, enterprise software. Are there any benchmarks for when a company should consider IPO'ing? minimum revenue, growth, number of employees, etc?

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I agree with the other posters that this probably isn't an appropriate question for the news.yc crowd. IPOs are rare. So you would be much better off seeking out experts.

That being said, check out http://www.softwareceo.com/attachments/softwareceo/com021908...

Unless you can do something like Google does in not giving out guidance, which seems highly doubtful, the bottom line benchmark seems to be a) a revenue threshold and then b) being able to give decent guidance about future numbers on a quarterly basis. I've always thought the revenue threshold was around 100M, but that link argues it can be smaller for software companies in the right situation.

Thanks, this is what I was looking for.

You should ask your VC's.

Few (if any) people on this board have taken a company public.

You should ask your VC's.

And your lawyers, and your CFO, and your bank.

I'm inclined to say that if you're asking news.yc whether you're ready to IPO, you're not ready.

To spin this in a slightly different direction, there are different req's on NASD/AMSE wrt market cap (this comes up when cos get delisted).

I'd be curious to know what it takes to get onto the OTC/BB (pink sheets), b/c those tend to be smaller cap public companies.

Yes. You post the minimum specs in an internet forum and do what they tell you. That's how you know when it's time.

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