Sprout Social files to go public

Sprout Social, the social media management company has filed to go public, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Chicago-based company was founded in 2010 and publically launched the following year.  They offer a cloud-based platform that it says brings social messaging, data and workflows into on place. Operating on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.

According to its S-1 filing, the company has 23,000 customers in 100 countries. Sprout has applied to list its stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol SPT. The venture has attracted $111.5 million in funding, according to Crunchbase.

Sprout’s 2018 revenue was 99 percent sourced from software subscriptions. The same percentage (99 percent) of its revenue came from software subscriptions for the first nine months of 2019.

It said in its SEC filing that its revenue grew 76 percent from 2017 to 2018, from $44.8 million to $78.8 million. Sprout's net losses were $21.9 million in 2017 and $20.9 million in 2018. As of the end of September, Sprout said it had generated more than $100 million in annualized recurring revenue. The company has generated losses of $21 million in the same period.

Sprout estimates that the market opportunity for its product is worth $13 billion annually in the United States. And the company said it expects the international opportunity "is at least as large," as 30 percent of its revenue in 2018 came from global customers.

The company said it plans to grow by acquiring new customers, as it has already experienced "strong" organic new customer growth. If customer spending levels reach the average of its current top customers, Sprout said its annual market opportunity could reach $51 billion in the U.S. alone.

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