The Trade Desk expects a valuation between $550 million and $600 million, according to an amended S-1 filed Tuesday.
The company will make 4.6 million shares available on the market, with an anticipated share price between $14 and $16. At the high end, it hopes to raise $85.9 million, compared to $86.3 million in its initial filing.
The Trade Desk’s expected market cap would set it ahead of any other publicly traded American ad tech company (the French company Criteo is valued at $2.3 billion), vaulting it past Rubicon Project’s $467 million.
It’s been a punishing couple of years on the market for ad tech companies. Earlier this summer, investors were eager for The Trade Desk (or AppNexus, which is yet to file for an IPO) to reset industry expectations.
Agency and ad tech sources previously told AdExchanger that channel specialist vendors like TubeMogul, YuMe and Millennial Media (which exited the market when its was bought by AOL last year) in particular had suffered due to The Trade Desk’s expansion in the space.
The Trade Desk seems to be looking to moderate runaway expectations leading up to its public offering. It’s looking to raise slightly more than TubeMogul’s initial plans for $75 million, although its $114 million in revenue last year doubled what TubeMogul brought in the year before its IPO in 2014. Rocket Fuel and Rubicon Project sought $100 million and $108 million, respectively, and both also had less revenue the year prior to filing.
The startup, however, had already raised a total of $185 million between a venture capital round and debt financing in 2016, so immediate cash may be a less pressing issue.
