SurveyMonkey, Tiger-Backed Online-Polling Provider, Files for IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Online-polling company SurveyMonkey has filed publicly for a U.S. initial public offering, saying it has more than half a million paying customers.

The company, under its official name Svmk Inc., filed Wednesday with an initial offering size of $100 million, typically a placeholder amount that will likely change. SurveyMonkey plans on using the proceeds to pay down income tax obligations related to a restricted stock unit settlement, for working capital and general purposes like acquisitions and technological investment.

Founded almost two decades ago, SurveyMonkey had more than 16 million active users in the past year, according to the filing. The company, based in San Mateo, California, said more than 600,000 of its total users pay for its services.

For the first six months of 2018, SurveyMonkey's net loss increased to $27.2 million from $19.1 million for the same period last year. In 2017 it had a net loss of $24 million on revenue of $218.8 million last year. That compared with a net loss of $76.4 million on $207.3 million in revenue in 2016.

Tiger Global Management LLC holds the largest stage in the company with 29 percent of the stock prior to the IPO. The Sheryl K. Sandberg Revocable Trust holds a 10 percent stake and Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is on the board. Her late husband, David Goldberg, was chief executive officer of the company.

Tennis champion Serena Williams and Intuit Inc. Chief Executive Officer Brad Smith joined the board last year.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Allen & Co. and Bank of America Corp. are leading the offering. The company has applied to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol SVMK.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Barinka in San Francisco at abarinka2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Matthew Monks

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