Pandora IPO Filing is Music to Investors’ Ears

Oakland, CA-based Pandora, the vastly popular personalized streaming music service, filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission today in preparation for an initial public offering this year. In the filing, the company said it hopes to raise as much as $100 million in a sale of common stock, and revealed that it is nearly profitable: It suffered a net loss of just $0.3 million in the first nine months of 2010, against revenue of $55.2 million. (The company earns money primarily on advertising through the Pandora website, though it also collected $5 million in fiscal 2010 for premium subscription services.) Venture backer Crosslink Capital owns the largest chunk of Pandora shares (23 percent), according to the filing; Walden Venture Capital, Greylock Partners, Labrador Ventures, the Hearst Corporation, and GGV Capital also stand to profit from the offering. Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan will underwrite the IPO.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/