Squarespace files privately to go public

NelsonG · January 27, 2021

Squarespace announced this afternoon that it is going public. The online website creation and hosting service is a venture-backed entity, having raised Series A and B rounds in 2010 and 2014, respectively. Those deals were worth a combined $78.5 million, according to Crunchbase data.

But Squarespace is perhaps best known for its epic 2017-era $200 million secondary round that General Atlantic financed. A secondary round is a transaction in which an external party buys share from existing shareholders, instead of the company issuing new equity. Some private companies execute secondary transactions when they do not need additional capital, but are also not near a liquidity event.

The 2017 transaction fits well with the company’s now-impending 2021 IPO.

At the time TechCrunch reported that the company had revenues of around $300 million and that it was profitable.

By filing, Squarespace joins a growing list of companies pursuing the public markets in recent months. At the end of 2020 C3.ai, DoorDash and Airbnb listed. To kick off 2021, Affirm and Poshmark listed to great effect. Coinbase has filed, Robinhood is a hot IPO prospect, and now Squarespace is throwing its hat into the ring.

The Squarespace filing is private, which means that we are waiting for a future public S-1 from the company. Here’s its own words on the current state of affairs:

Squarespace, Inc. today announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The registration statement is expected to become effective after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.

As Squarespace is a software company, a cloud company and a company with a hand in the e-commerce space, we can only presume that it will suffer from a stultifying lack of investor interest when it does file, price and list.¹ After all, we’ve not seen a hot software IPO for weeks.

Hat’s off to Squarespace for freeing us from the news doldrums. We’re going back to our nap now.

¹This is sarcasm.