Digital marketing company MaxPoint Interactive, a company founded and led by former eBay (NASDAQ: [[ticker:EBAY]]) executives, has filed paperwork to raise an estimated $75 million in an initial public offering of stock.
Morrisville, NC-based MaxPoint’s software analyzes “big data” to develop targeted marketing campaigns that help national retailers boost sales—not online, but at their brick and mortar stores. Despite the growth of Internet commerce, MaxPoint is betting that customers will continue to shop at physical locations. In its filing with regulators, the company points to data from Euromonitor that says 88 percent of U.S. retail transactions in 2014 took place at physical locations.
But MaxPoint says the print, direct mail, and radio marketing used by retailers is now outdated. MaxPoint can target consumers using software that analyzes purchase patterns as well as the consumption of online media. MaxPoint says its software can match products to a digital grid of households, which the company calls Digital Zips—a location that “can be as small as a couple of city blocks.” The company says its software can create a profile for each Digital Zip that shows characteristics such as family size, income, education, age, and historical purchasing behavior.
“We use our consumer purchase intent model to determine which products consumers in a particular Digital Zip are most likely to purchase,” the company says in the filing.
MaxPoint says customers for its subscription software include large companies with national brands in retail, automotive, healthcare, telecommunications, and entertainment. As of the end of the third quarter of 2014, the company reports having 431 enterprise customers. MaxPoint generated $66.1 million in revenue in 2013, according to the filing. The company reported a $187 million net loss in 2013. In 2014, revenue through the third quarter was $66.1 million.
In the filing, MaxPoint says it will use proceeds from the stock offering for corporate purposes that include sales and marketing, investing in its technology, and enhancing its software. MaxPoint also recently established an office in the United Kingdom and the company says it plans to explore international expansion. The $75 million figure could change, of course. MaxPoint has not yet said how many shares it would sell in the offering, nor did it give a price range for the proposed stock sale.
MaxPoint was founded in 2006 by Joseph Epperson, the company’s president and CEO; Gretchen Joyce, chief operating officer; and Kurt Carlson, chief technology officer. Epperson had previously worked at eBay as the company’s finance director. Joyce was eBay’s director of passenger vehicles and later, the company’s director of international motors.
MaxPoint has raised $25.5 million from venture capital investors. The company’s largest shareholders are venture capital firms Madrona Venture Funds and Trinity Ventures.
