As we’ve reported before, handmade and vintage marketplace Etsy is going public. For many who love the site, this isn’t considered a good thing and that foreboding might be justified.
Etsy has a loyal following and the pressures of becoming a public company are considerable. I’m a very keen Etsy buyer myself: just yesterday I bought myself a new tie.
I’m worried that IPO might taint what is a unique and enjoyable marketplace. We shall see.
But the IPO, the offering of Etsy on the stock exchange, is imminent and that means that under the US rules they have to give out more details about their business. Previously, as a private company, they have enjoyed some secrecy.
Stateside, one of the things they have to do pre-IPO, is file an S1. That’s a declaration of some key business stats and they make interesting reading.
Thankfully, bigger brains than ours are available. Techcrunch has published an article by venture capitalist Ezra Galston who looks at the submission made by Etsy